In a war against terrorism and to keep Al-Qaeda zealots, megalomaniac North Koreans with nukes and other bad guys at bay, the United States intelligence agency engages gigabytes of real-time intelligence stream to the Wall, there to be collated and conceptualised by one man - the Analyst.
The Analyst, once an anonymous IRS bureaucrat with an eidetic memory and a powerful intellect, now sits mute in a federal supermax prison as an accused serial killer.
Sean King and Michelle Maxwell, Secret Service agents turned private investigators, are called upon to help him. Sean has agreed to investigate the murders at the behest of his mentor and defense attorney Ted Bergin.
On their way to meet Bergin at the prison in Maine, Sean and Michelle find Ted sitting in his vehicle on an isolated road with the emergency lights flashing. He has been murdered.
The author’s realistic plot blends patriotism and naked ambition, greed and paranoia and bureaucratic infighting. With the Wall providing a singular source of accurate information, the government's alphabet departments are losing funding, especially Homeland Security, headed by the cunning and ambitious Ellen Foster.
Several other characters in the story also stand out, including Peter Bunting, chief of a private-security company and the genius behind the Wall and the Analyst; Mason Quantrell, owner of a rival company, who is more interested in fat contracts than useful intelligence; the Analyst's sister, Kelly Paul, a woman with her own secrets; James Harkes, an agent without a badge but has a violent temper; and finally, Edgar Roy, the Analyst - brilliant, shy, lonely and deeply troubled about his part in the death and destruction generated by the Wall.
This action-adventure takes the reader on a journey from isolated Maine woods to Washington power corridors, with stops in Virginia and New York.
The terrifying events that unfold will push Sean and Michelle to the limit. Will the duo survive the challenges and save Edgar from his predicament?
The Sixth Man is followed by the sixth and final book in the King and Maxwell series, King and Maxwell.