MCKENNA'S GUY

An inoffensive printer’s troubles only begin when he’s targeted for death.

Roger Smith works for the Government Publishing Office in Washington, D.C. He has a side gig designing greeting cards. He’s a longtime widower a year from retirement whose work has always been exemplary. So why does an assassin break into his house in the middle of the night and pepper his bed with bullets? It’s too late to ask Anton LeBlanc, the hit man, since Roger managed to kill him. But Det. Grace Lillinthal, of the D.C. Metro Police, would sure like to know, and the suspicious behavior of Roger, who’s very much an amateur at this, convinces her that the killer’s motive has something to do with Roger’s connection to his neighbor John McKenna, an ex-con bar owner with many criminal connections of his own. She’s right, of course: Roger’s been crafting false passports for select McKenna clients for years. Roger has his standards. His set price of $50,000 discourages minor leaguers. He won’t make more than one phony passport a year. And he won’t help supply murderers or others who pose a danger to society. So his target clientele, scammers who’ve defrauded the wealthy, are pretty rich themselves, and one of them clearly sent LeBlanc after him. But how did the client get Roger’s name, what does he have against him, and what are the chances that the next killer he hires, or the one after that, will get to Roger before Lillinthal cracks him open? Forgoing the occasional humor of Congressional fixer Joe DeMarco’s adventures, Lawson’s stand-alone strips plot, characters, and prose down to exceptional efficiency, producing maximum thrills without a wasted word.

The perfect in-flight read, starring a surprisingly resourceful antihero who spends much of his own time in flight.