GEORGE WILLIAMS

George Williams is a lawyer with the Justice Department.

More accurately, he is a Deputy Assistant Attorney General, a man who has paid his dues with nearly a dozen years of working for Justice. He had been one of many young lawyers drawn to public service by the charisma that was John Kennedy and had gotten to know Bobby Kennedy fairly well.

When the Kennedy Administration started its civil rights work, Williams was one of those that Bobby had chosen to play a large role. It had marked the best couple of years of his life and he relished them in his memory.

Williams stayed at Justice when Johnson took over and continued to fight in the same department. His reputation grew as someone you did not want to mess with; a man who did his homework and saw more in little details than most did in the larger ones. His promotions came commensurate with his achievements and within a few years he was known as one of the most powerful lawyers at Justice.

The changing of the power to the Republicans with the election of Nixon did not bring the offer to be let go as he expected. He was transferred from Civil Rights to Internal Security which surprised him but it was clear that his reputation had been too good to lose him.

In his new role, he went after all manner of criminals out to bring chaos or destruction to the government and he was as good at that as he had been at his previous work. He was definitely the man you did not want on the other side of you in a court room and even more so, you did not want him outside the court where his investigative skills and incredible analytical abilities were astounding.

If Williams was after you, you were going to be caught.

I read the first book in this series shortly after it came out in 1973, probably '74 or '75. I was fascinated by the plot and greatly impressed by the character that was George Williams. The writing ability of Mr. DiMona is absolutely top-notch and a blast to read. I remember not being able to put the book down.

Move forward 35 years and many years after I had started writing about spy series and people who deal with international situations and intrigue. A chance reading of an old review had mention of another book about the same character and I was surprised. I had never thought to look. I certainly did when I heard of it and was pleased to find it was not only true, there were two more books about Williams.

Since it had been so long since I had read the first, I re-read it and found it was even better than I recalled. Once again I simply could not put it down. The other two books were quite different than the first but just as good. Williams is a very good character and Mr. DiMona is a terrific writer.

I strongly recommend this series.