K Street - M. A. Lawson

K Street

A Kay Hamilton Novel

M.A. Lawson

Blue Ridge Press

Thriller

Kay Hamilton is ready to quit her job.  It’s not that it’s a bad job, exactly.  It’s that she’s just not sure whose interests the Callahan Group represents.  Rumor has it that the Group works for the President, but unofficially, so there’s no trail back to the White House.  Kay, late of the DEA, doesn’t quite believe it; but she can’t brush it off, either.  With no straight answers coming her way, she’s on her way into the office to tell Thomas Callahan that it’s been nice, but she’s leaving. 

As she enters the office that early evening, she walks into a fire fight.  Several heavily-armed men are in the process of removing the safe from Callahan’s office wall.  Callahan and two of his employees have been shot.  Callahan is clinging to life.  The other two weren’t so lucky.  Since she was forced to defend herself – and in the process killed one of the intruders – the DC Police are more than a little eager to discuss every detail.  Kay is not about to start spilling information (what little information she has) to a random detective.  Once she makes her way to the hospital to check in on Callahan, he manages to utter a single name.  It’s not much, but it’s a starting point. 

This is the third novel in this series.  I haven’t read the first two, and I had no problem picking up here.  There’s enough background sketched in to give me a good idea of who Kay is as a character; and about her recent history.  The story starts with the heist, from the point-of-view of the armed men.  To say it hits the ground running is an understatement.  When we switch back to Kay’s point of view, the investigation moves very quickly as she backtracks through the last couple of days’ events.  As it turns out, a whole lot happened, including several murders.  Clearly, someone very powerful (and dangerous) is involved in all this.

The narrative continues to switch points-of-view throughout the book.  Far from being distracting or confusing, this allows the reader to follow the characters and gain a full picture of what’s going on and why.  Everyone has his/her own motives here; some are obviously going to conflict.  Kay is the star, but there’s plenty of attention given to the rest of the cast.  Even the secondary characters feel like real people on the periphery of something big.  This is one of those fun, fast-paced thrillers that keep me up way too late.  And I don’t regret it one bit.

Rating: 8

January 2017

ISBN# 978-0-399-57584-2 (hardcover)