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The 500 by Matthew Quirk

Sunday, June 24, 2012




Mike Ford is a former con artist who's been plucked from his Harvard Law School classroom to be an associate at The Davies Group, Washington's most high-powered and well-respected strategic consulting firm. Their specialty: pulling strings and peddling influence for the five hundred most powerful people inside the Beltway, the men and women who really run Washington -- and by extension the country, and the world.

The namesake of the firm, Henry Davies, knows everyone who matters; more importantly, he knows their secrets. Davies' experience goes back 40 years -- he worked for Lyndon Johnson, jumped shipped to Nixon, then put out his own shingle as the Hill's most cut-throat and expensive fixer. Now he's looking for a protégé to tackle his most high-stakes deal yet, and Mike fits the bill.

Quickly pulled into a seductive, dangerous web of power and corruption, Mike struggles to find his way out. But how do you save your soul when you've made a deal with the devil?

Goodreads Summary


Mike Ford’s dad is in prison, his mom has died, his brother is in and out of jail, and he is ready to graduate from Harvard Law School but with a ton of debt from his mother’s illness and for his Harvard tuition. He can’t believe it when Davies Group hires him – giving him a large salary, a great apartment, and a secretary who takes care of everything for him. He has also fallen for Annie Clark, an associate at Davies. He has everything until he learns the degree to which the Davies Group will go in order to control The 500, the most influential, elite people in D.C. Using the criminal skills that he acquired from watching his dad, he attempts to discover …and then escape political, murderous intrigue.
As Ford is drawn into the “barely legal” practices at Davies, I cringed. You know that he should get out now. Another associate with great political ties in Washington warns him, but Ford is too tempted by his success to leave. Pulled in two directions – because he does seem to have a functioning moral compass, I hated to see him get much too curious about the project that could get him, his dad, and his girlfriend killed. The money and tactics of the Davies Group made me wince. How much of this actually goes on? It’s depressing. The “honor among thieves” creed of his dad made me feel better about the world. Difficult to put down, the book would probably hook the guys in our house too.

Four Stars

*Reviewed by Colleen*

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3 comments:

  1. This actually sounds pretty good! I would love to read this some time. :)

  1. Lili said...:

    I don't think I've read a novel that shows the corruption in some politics before! This seems interesting.

  1. Yeah, I don't think this one is for me. The title caught my attention, but corrupt politicians and spying and all that isn't something I can usually get into in a novel. Now a movie? Oh yeah!