(Review) King and Maxwell

THE last time we saw the wisecracking, gun-toting pair of Sean King and Michelle Maxwell, they were fighting for the life of a man wrongly accused of being a serial killer.
Now, with King and Maxwell, they’re trying to help 16-year-old Tyler Wingo to uncover what’s happened to his father.
According to the US Department of Defence, the man was killed in action while serving as an Army ­reservist in Afghanistan. But Tyler has received an email from his father after his supposed death.
As Sean and Maxwell dig deeper into the case, their investigation reveals troubling questions.
Eventually, they ­discover that they have stumbled upon something even more sinister.
In fact, the man – ­Northern Virginia resident Sam Wingo – isn’t dead.
He has been swept up in a secret, highly-sensitive military operation that went bad. So, rather than face prison time as a fall guy, he has gone MIA in ­Afghanistan.
With the US government and ­Afghan rebel groups going after him, Wingo finds himself in a tight spot, but he’s determined to get back to his son.
Stateside, his son is in a bind, too.
The ­departments of Defence and Homeland ­Security are pressuring him to ­accept their account of his father’s ­supposed death, and they warn him (and King and Maxwell) that asking too many questions could jeopardise ­“national ­security”.
King and Maxwell are, however, unconvinced.
Determined to help and protect Tyler, the duo’s search for truth leads them on a ­dangerous journey which not only places their lives at risk but also arrives at a ­frightening conclusion.
With ample explosions, shootouts and car chases, the Northern Virginia-based parts of King and Maxwell are powerfully entertaining, as ­usual.
Baldacci keeps the sexual tension between his two private investigators on a low but steady simmer.
But Wingo’s furtive escape from Afghanistan is the book’s standout element.
The wrong-man motive is ­powerfully appealing – consider how many films Alfred Hitchcock got out of its relatively simple setup.
When it’s tied to timely questions about how much power a ­democratically-elected government should wield over its citizens, though, it becomes especially resonant.
An intriguing read.