As a Washington, D.C. fixer, Joe DeMarco has found himself in plenty of unexpected situations, but none takes him further out of his element than the one early in House Rivals, the latest book in Mike Lawson’s award-winning series: a three-day road trip through Montana and the Dakotas with a twenty-two-year-old firebrand blogger. His young companion is Sarah Johnson, whose grandfather saved the life of DeMarco’s boss, Congressman John Mahoney, in Vietnam. It has fallen to DeMarco to protect Sarah in her crusade against a billionaire oil tycoon who has profited handsomely from the booming "Kuwait on the Prairie"—and who has been bribing small-time politicians and judges to keep things in his favor. Though she has no hard evidence against the man, Sarah has been receiving death threats for her meddling. DeMarco, given his years of experience bending the rules in D.C., is suspicious that there is someone like him pulling strings for the tycoon. And when the situation takes a violent turn, DeMarco quickly realizes that he has more of a stake in this young woman’s mission than he thought. The situation turns into a battle of who can outwit whom as more than one life becomes endangered.