House Standoff by Mike Lawson

Published by Atlantic Monthly Press on April 6, 2021

In an earlier Joe DeMarco novel, DeMarco had a fling with Shannon Doyle, who abandoned her earlier life to write a novel. DeMarco thought their relationship might turn into more than a fling, but Shannon was chasing her dream and the dream led her to the west coast. DeMarco works as a fixer for a congressman and has no idea what he would do if he left that job. Besides, he’s happy to have a job that lets him spend more time golfing than working. Leaving D.C. isn’t in his immediate future. That’s good news for DeMarco fans.

At the beginning of House Standoff, DeMarco reads in the newspaper that Shannon was murdered in Wyoming. He pulls some strings with Wyoming’s congressman and learns that the local Sheriff’s deputy investigating the death believes that Shannon was murdered by a random trucker who entered her motel room and stole her laptop. DeMarco regards that theory as unlikely. He travels to Wyoming to pursue an investigation of his own, or at least to make a nuisance of himself until the deputy tries harder to solve the crime.

House Standoff is a good book for whodunit fans. DeMarco develops several suspects who might have wanted Shannon dead. Shannon had been gossiping with locals to develop a sense of atmosphere for her new book. She learned about an affair that would be troublesome if it were exposed. A jealous wife suspects Shannon of having an affair with her husband. And Shannon knew the secret of a woman who lives across the street from the motel, a woman who claims to have witnessed a female entering Shannon’s room shortly before she was murdered.

Another plot thread involves a wealthy and influential rancher who is at war with the BLM because he shares the common belief that, as a member of the public, all public land belongs to him. He doesn’t believe he should be required to pay grazing fees when his cattle are on public land. Not long after the rancher and a BLM agent were in a standoff, the BLM agent was shot in the back. DeMarco uses his unconventional approach to problem solving to gather evidence against the killer. (That part of the story, Mike Lawson reveals in an afterword, was inspired by an actual armed standoff in Wyoming. The prevalence of libertarian characters who believe that problems are best solved with guns was probably inspired by Wyoming’s existence.)

The whodunit reads like a classic mystery. Lawson develops the suspects in a fair amount of depth, revealing their potential motives while giving the reader reason to question whether they are likely to have committed a murder. The solution is surprising, all the more so because for all of the nosing around that DeMarco does, he has little to do with solving the crime.

Most of the characters, including an FBI agent, view DeMarco as ruining lives by meddling in people’s secrets. DeMarco doesn’t have much sympathy for the lives he might have ruined, although he does try to mitigate the damage. I like DeMarco because he’s shady but fundamentally decent. The same could be said of most of the murder suspects, although they fall on various points along the continuum between purity and corruption.

Lawson has hit his stride with the recent DeMarco novels. House Standoff is the latest in his series of beach reads that have a deceptive amount of depth.

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