Michael Bowen – författare

When Jerzy Schroeder, a shadowy gray-market hustler and aspiring crony capitalist, is murdered while Josie Kendall is hitting him up for a million dollars to help him cash in on alternative-energy funding, the police suspect her of adultery and her husband, Rafe, of homicide. Josie, who works for Majority Values Coalition, an “activist fundraising organization,” is a new but passionate Washington, DC, player. Rafe, long a Washington insider, is passionate about Josie and about supporting her learning curve on how Washington works.

For Josie and Rafe, this isn’t a murder investigation but a political damage-control problem. They’ll need a full arsenal, since, as one capital insider points out, “A damage control strategy that hasn’t succeeded within thirty days has failed.” They attack the issue with an array of finely tuned skills: strategic leaks, manipulation of the media, judicious use of inside information, and a flexible attitude toward the truth―plus the assistance of Josie’s Uncle Darius, a veteran spin doctor with surprising connections, who is, luckily, out on parole. Along the way, Josie will have to decide whether there are ethical lines that even she won’t cross.

In this House of Cards scenario, determining who actually murdered Schroeder is a low-priority problem, but Josie manages to do that as well. It’s all in a day’s—or, rather, thirty days’—work.

When a fraternity boy finds himself on trial in Milwaukee for piracy on the high seas, Lawyer Rep Pennyworth suspects he’s being used as an unwitting accomplice in a cheap publicity stunt. Meanwhile, his wife, Melissa, the professor-half of the couple, gets caught in the middle of a conflict between two colleagues that soon escalates into burglary, theft, jury-tampering, forgery of a papal document from World War II, and murder.

Caught between an investigative reporter who’s still having flashbacks to 1968, a professor whose acute political correctness masks ruthless academic ambition, an engineer whose father’s death looks suspicious, and a brace of cunning lawyers out for blood, Rep and Melissa have to combine their talents to stay off the casualty list while they figure out what’s really going on.

This contemporary puzzle mystery features Rep and Melissa Pennyworth, a bantering, plucky couple. Rep, a trademark and copyright lawyer, has followed Melissa to Milwaukee in her quest for a university assistant professorship.

Then, on the night before the Army-Navy game, a midshipman is found stark naked and barely alive in a cheap motel near the Naval Academy in Annapolis. The victim’s closest relatives are Ole and Lena Lindstrom, a pair of aging but scrappy Wisconsin political activists who had asked Rep for copyright advice. Ole and Lena have a well-earned reputation for trading punches with each other, and when Ole is murdered, Lena becomes an instant suspect. But Rep and Melissa suspect there is more involved, including a connection between the midshipman’s mugging and Ole’s murder.

Attorney Rep Pennyworth faces the client from hell: Charlotte Buchanan, author of And Done to Others’ Harm, a mystery of no particular merit. Charlotte contends that her 1997 novel is the basis for the 1999 film Contemplation of Death—and she wants to sue. Rep would blow her off, but Charlotte is the daughter of the CEO of the firm’s major corporate client, Tavistock Limited. Charlotte is resolute in demanding recognition, so Rep digs in, aided by his literature-addicted wife Melissa, and files suit. By return mail comes a grisly death threat. Research shows the film’s director was Aaron Eastman, a Hollywood legend whose Red Guard should have been a box office and critical smash but oddly fell short. Eastman claims the Oscar balloting was sabotaged. Now he’s on the comeback trail and anxious not to derail. He and Rep talk and bit by bit, the outline of a bizarre scheme to destroy the credibility of Eastman and Red Guard emerges. Hoosiers Rep and Melissa aren’t prepared for the larger licenses granted to political powerhouses, but they’re quick on the uptake and soon armed.

Rep and Melissa Pennyworth attend a reenactment of a Civil War battle in Kansas City, Missouri, while seeking a cutting-edge copyright case for attorney Rep—and find a corpse instead. Melissa’s best friend from girlhood, Linda Damon, worked for the victim before his death and, on one regrettable occasion, got a bit too intimately involved in her job. Linda’s husband, Peter, an enthusiastic Civil War hobbyist, had a motive, an opportunity, and a Civil War saber that now turns out to be drenched in the victim’s blood. It would seem logical that this is a job for the police and that Rep’s knowledge of trademark and copyright law, Melissa’s PhD in literature, and the passionate Anglomania of Peter’s boss would be of no help to the investigation. But when Rep and Melissa are involved, logic is seldom a reliable guide. Their contribution ends up being essential to the solution of a crime whose roots go back to an execution during World War II and a contemporary hatred that has grown way out of bounds.