• Booklist Reviews : Booklist Reviews 2014 November #1
  The guy hero is back. Cynical. Skeptical. He can beat you up, or draw faster when he can't. Drink you under the table, too. When he meets members of the opposite sex, he muses on their possibilities as bed partners. But in Lawson's fine action thriller, there's one difference: "he" is a woman. Kay Hamilton is an ex–DEA agent, canned for killing a few "slimewads," never mind due process. Here she's hired by a mysterious Washington outfit that may be working for the president. Or not. Her job is to infiltrate an Afghan family with access to valuable metals and influence them toward Washington. It goes murderously, violently bad, and Kay suspects her elite crowd contains a traitor. The traitor is out to kill her, which leads to a couple of exciting fight scenes. Kay is a great character: smart, tough, and uncompromising. Once she discovers the traitor, she plots an elaborate, humiliating punishment. All in all, this makes for much more compelling reading than if she had been a "he." Copyright 2014 Booklist Reviews.

M. A. Lawson is the pen name for the award-winning novelist Mike Lawson, a former civilian executive for the U.S. Navy and the creator of nine novels in the Capitol Hill–based Joe DeMarco series.