“Alligator Alley” is by Northwest author Mike Lawson.

On its face, “Alligator Alley” doesn’t seem to have a very strong argument for appearing in a book review column that focuses on Northwest books. In fact, this political thriller is set on the East Coast — in the reptile-infested Everglades, and in the nation’s capital, where some folks are perhaps even more cold-blooded and opportunistic than Florida’s fearsome alligators.

But the Northwest connection behind this book is the fellow who wrote it — prolific author Mike Lawson spent three decades as a nuclear engineer and a senior civilian executive in the Naval shipyards of Bremerton, Washington, so he knows a thing or two about the roiling bureaucratic guts of government.

“Alligator Alley” is Lawson’s 16th novel featuring Joe DeMarco, who works under the radar in the employ of Speaker of the House John Mahoney. DeMarco is regularly called upon to perform “damage control” that sometimes teeters on the edge of legality.

But in this case, DeMarco is summoned from his spartan sub-basement office in the Capitol Building to investigate the killing of a young federal employee who worked for the Office of the Inspector General in the Department of Justice. The office was created to make sure that the department operates on the up-and-up, so the young woman’s homicide potentially involves political foul play.

Mahoney instructs DeMarco to look into it, and also informs him that he’ll be working with a spy who has officially retired from her work in clandestine operations for the Defense Intelligence Agency. But Emma’s skill set is so valuable that she keeps busy as a freelancer in her retirement.

In many ways, DeMarco and Emma are opposites. He comes across as casual and unambitious, while she’s precision personified. He likes to stay up late and get up later, she’s the “early-bird, worm-catching” type. Their working relationship is “like that of a cranky older sister toward a wayward younger brother.”

Nonetheless, they recognize in each other that they will do whatever is needed to achieve the morally just outcome.

Pretty quickly, this odd-couple duo figures out who was responsible for the murder, but they also recognize that there are some troubling twists to the story that need to be untangled.

While corruption at top levels often grabs the headlines, this is a story that delves into mid-level misdeeds by bureaucrats who’ve become dissatisfied with their way of life and who desire something more.

In telling of this story, the author gets into the heads of the perpetrators of the crime, as well as the victims and the investigators. What comes across as a casual and even sympathetic sharing of their thought processes is actually a crafty dissertation on how rationalizing misbehavior — greed, for instance — can lead to egregious consequences.

Lawson’s toolkit includes great pacing, wry humor, a thorough understanding of criminal thinking and engaging characters. All of the above makes “Alligator Alley” an entertaining read.

This week’s book

“Alligator Alley” by Mike Lawson

Atlantic Monthly Press — 288 pp — $27