Redemption A novel

Lawson takes a break from his Joe DeMarco series to offer this propulsive stand-alone. Jamison Maddox, a disgraced Wall Street broker, has no chance of landing another high-paying job in New York after being convicted of insider training. Determined to start over, he accepts a job as a researcher for a mysterious, family-owned firm in Redemption, Illinois, at a lowly salary (for him) of $120,000 per year. It's a bit of a bore--the job and the backwater town--but he does the work, keeping a low profile until his clients start dying in suspicious accidents, and he begins an affair with his boss' wife, Gillian. Suddenly, life in Redemption seems neither boring nor redemptive. As he gradually learns more about the firm's hidden agenda, he decides to leave, but only if Gillian accompanies him. No easy trick, given that she has family connections. The similarity to Grisham's The Firm is evident from the outset, but Lawson plays several unexpected and beguiling tunes against that familiar chord structure. A clever and suspenseful thriller starring a seemingly naive hero who turns out to be more than a little resourceful.

This excellent legal thriller from Lawson (the Joe DeMarco series) stars high-flying New York lawyer Jamison Maddox, who has lost his job at Goldman Sachs after participating in financial crimes. He's dodged a prison term, but as a convicted felon no reputable hedge fund or investment bank will hire him. The exception is a mysterious company, Drexler Limited, based in Redemption, Ill. The company's head, Claud Drexler, offers a paltry $120,000 annual salary with a long list of unusual restrictive conditions. Jamison accepts. The job entails carrying out financial and corporate research, which bores Jamison, as does the town of Redemption, but he does his job. After several deaths relating to his work occur, he begins to realize something is seriously wrong with the Drexler firm. When he begins an affair with a colleague who's married to his boss, readers will anticipate that things will go downhill fast for Jamison. They do, as Lawson's meticulous plotting keeps upping the suspense to nearly unbearable levels. This basic plot worked wonders 30 years ago for John Grisham in The Firm; in Lawson's capable hands it's once again a winner. Agent: David Gernert, Gernert Company. (Apr.)Correction: An earlier version of this review misidentified the character the novel's protagonist had an affair with.