King and Maxwell return in 'The Sixth Man'

“The Sixth Man,” by David Baldacci, Grand Central.

David Baldacci brings back private investigators Sean King and Michelle Maxwell to solve another complex puzzle in his latest novel, “The Sixth Man.”

King receives a call from an old colleague, Ted Bergin, asking him to help investigate a federal case in Maine. When King and Maxwell arrive, they’re shocked to find Bergin’s body in his car on the side of the road. They both immediately become suspects in his murder.

Trying to solve Bergin’s murder pits King and Maxwell against deadly adversaries in the highest levels of government. Everyone who tries to help them seems to end up dead.

Their survival depends on a man who is locked away in a maximum-security mental facility. He has the answers they’re seeking.

Meanwhile, a man named Peter Bunting has created a state-of-the-art intelligence-gathering strategy that could revolutionize the methods used by the CIA and other letter agencies to filter massive volumes of data.

Unfortunately, others want this program and are willing to frame innocent people and commit murder to achieve their goals.

King and Maxwell collide with Bunting, and no one will ever be the same.

Baldacci is a master craftsman. The puzzle in “The Sixth Man” at first appears to be straightforward. But Baldacci takes this seemingly obvious plot and slowly unravels the multiple intertwining layers. By the time the last page is turned, it’s not at all what the reader was expecting.

“The Sixth Man” will certainly land at the top of best-seller lists.