The Rule of Equity

by Jonathan Neville

Overview

A smart thriller about Native Americans reclaiming their rights in North America. "Dan Brown meets Lee Child meets John Grisham... The Da Vinci Code of American history, with a stunning and satisfying ending that leaves readers wanting more!" After centuries of genocide, relocation, and neglect, Native Americans watch as the government that oppressed them faces financial ruin, environmental catastrophe, and imminent social collapse. Hyrum Cobb, a brilliant Native American lawyer who heads the Bureau of Indian Affairs, devises a plan to reclaim America for his people-and for the benefit of all Americans. He has secretly assembled a coalition of powerful financial interests and friendly foreign allies, but he also has to persuade the American people-and overcome the fierce opposition of the entrenched elite in New York and Washington DC, who have the entire federal government at their disposal. Can he be stopped? Should he be stopped? The outcome will determine the course of American-and world-history. Hyrum's complex plan is jeopardized by a shocking murder in the nation's capital that sends him on the run from the FBI. From deep cover, Hyrum uses a coded message to enlist a trusted, powerful friend--Tom Madison, from the popular series of legal thrillers--to help him. A desperate race through Washington, D.C., New York City, and the little-known ancient ruins of North America ensues. Astonishing truths about Native Americans, concealed for centuries, are unveiled as the tribes seek to reassert sovereignty and restore the values of justice and equity toward all people and the natural world that allowed them to thrive in the land for thousands of years before the Europeans invaded. "A desperate race through Washington, D.C., New York City, and little-known ancient ruins of North America... Astonishing truths about Native Americans, concealed for centuries, are unveiled at last!"

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781482687422
Publisher:	CreateSpace Publishing
Publication date:	03/04/2013
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	5.98(w) x 9.02(h) x 0.73(d)

Editorial Reviews

07/28/2014
Combining an economic war against the United States and a complex plot intended to provide justice for Native Americans is an interesting premise, but its execution is mixed in this fast-paced thriller. Neville's book opens with a bloody ritual at Thomas Jefferson's Indian Mound in Virginia, involving a man later identified as Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Indian Affairs Hyrum Cobb. The knife-wielding medicine man conducting the ceremony warns Cobb that all men to previously undergo the ordeal died without fulfilling their destiny. The action then flashes forward two years, as the author slowly teases out what that destiny is, beginning with the murders of two government officials in Washington, D.C. Unraveling the scheme falls to a somewhat clichéd pair: Tom Madison, a successful businessman able to kick butt when needed, and his ex-wife, Magena Brown, who turns out to be Hyrum's niece. Although the resolution strains credulity, the pacing and clever plot twists will satisfy fans of the genre.

Publishers Weekly

2014-05-01
Neville's latest thriller (The Clown House, 2012, etc.) finds lawyer and investment banker Tom Madison under suspicion by the FBI when he tries to help a friend suspected of murder.When Madison receives a voicemail from Kim Blumenthal, an official at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, saying that one of his law firm's clients is in trouble, he hops right on a plane. But once in New York, he's surprised to find that Kim is now missing—and even more surprised to receive a strange call from his old friend Hyrum Cobb, a Native American who runs the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs. Hyrum's messages, in a code that only Tom can decipher, say that Kim's been killed; so has Dale Davis, of the Department of the Treasury, who'd been involved in a blackmail scheme involving the $3.2 billion Cobell Indian settlement. It turns out that the FBI had been monitoring Kim and Dale and had recorded them mentioning Hyrum's name, so Hyrum went into hiding. Tom teams up with his ex-wife (and Hyrum's niece), Magena Brown, to track Hyrum down and recover a missing memory card from Dale's cellphone that could contain crucial evidence. Meanwhile, FBI agent Libby Villalobos is desperate to close the case, as she was the assassin and now needs a patsy to take the blame. Although the murderer's identity is quickly revealed, the novel is still jam-packed with action, as Hyrum directs Tom and Magena to a mysterious flash drive; later, the identity of the "mentor" who gave Libby her murderous assignment is revealed. The plot is easy to follow, thanks to its unambiguous heroes and villains, whose intentions are always clear. Some plot points, though, are unnecessarily convoluted; cracking the password-protected flash drive, for example, is far too complicated, entailing almost 12 pages of Tom and Magena discussing symbols. That said, Neville doesn't allow many moments to linger for very long, and he maintains an impressively fast tempo by bouncing back and forth between scenes, such as Tom and Magena working out Hyrum's perplexing voicemail while Libby is bound and gagged in a bathtub.An engaging story with scrupulously detailed characters and a swift pace that will leave readers reeling.

Kirkus Reviews