Bestselling author David Baldacci charts another adventure for the Memory Man, Amos Decker, and his partner, Alex Jamison. Walk the Wire is Baldacci's sixth installment in the popular series.

This time, the two are dispatched to a little town where all the residents know each other, the major local business enterprises are controlled by a few powerful citizens, and the town is undergoing the latest in a series of booms and busts. The current economic growth is the result of fracking, the process of injecting liquid at high pressure into subterranean rocks, boreholes, and the like in order to force open existing fissures and extract oil. Because of it, London, North Dakota, is like "the California Gold Rush of 1849, only on steroids." And "the ordinary rules of civilization don't necessarily apply . . ." Against that backdrop, Decker and Jamison set out to determine why a beautiful young woman named Irene Cramer was targeted by a killer.

Decker is eager to uncover the secrets that motivate the folks in London, among them the local coroner/mortician who examines Cramer's body but omits salient details from his report, and the two most successful and prominent businessmen in town. Arch rivals and competitors, their mutual dislike is legendary. Both have survived family traumas, including tragic accidental deaths and suicides. There's an Air Force station housing a radar array not far from town, outside of which ambulances are lined up. No one seems to know why so many emergency vehicles might be needed or why the state of North Dakota needs two such stations within its borders. It's adjacent to land owned and occupied by The Brothers, a branch of the Anabaptists. Their lifestyle is somewhat akin to that of the Amish, except they use some modern technology such as vehicles and heavy equipment. But like the Amish they live communally and operate their own school. Cramer was working as a teacher in that conservative environment by day, and serving as an escort by night.

Decker is shocked when he encounters his brother-in-law, Stan, who is working in the oil field. It seems that Decker's sister, Renee, who resides in California, did not notify Decker about her divorce. But Decker is not good at communicating with his family members. Stan's presence in the narrative serves two purposes. First, he provides assistance to Decker and Jamison as their investigation intensifies and expands. More importantly, he permits Baldacci to delve further into Decker's personal life. In prior volumes, Decker's loss of his wife and child have figured prominently in the story. Decker continues mourning them, even though in Redemption, the fifth book in the series, Decker returned to Burlington and, while visiting their graves, made a conscious decision to live in the present. He still experiences guilt on occasion, acknowledging that with the passage of time, the old adage that "life goes on" is proving to be true. His job keeps him busy and he has made a few new friends. He questions whether he is betraying Cassie and Molly because he "promised them while standing over their graves, that they would be the center of his life until he joined them." The introduction of Stan and Renee was, according to Baldacci, "a device allowing me to show another side of Decker.”

Once again, it is Decker's uncanny skill at noticing details and inconsistencies that escape most people, that propels the investigation forward. Decker has hyperthymesia, the ability to remember everything and the inability to forget anything. As a young professional football player, he sustained a traumatic brain injury that left him comatose. In addition to attaining perfect recall, his personality was altered. He has trouble expressing emotion and dealing with people, missing social clues. Additionally, he has synthesthesia because his sensory pathways commingled. He sees colors associated with things like death and numbers. Normally, he sees an area where there is a dead body as electric blue, but Decker has noticed his brain beginning to change recently. He has been forgetting things -- only momentarily -- and as he views a dead body, the room is not blue. "My brain keeps me guessing and I don't much care for it. No, I hate it," Decker laments.

Baldacci again demonstrates his ability to deftly meticulously plot a story full of surprising twists, unexpected revelations, and connections between characters that keep readers guessing. The story advances at a steady, unrelenting pace, and is populated with a cast of colorful characters. It is also timely, given the controversy surrounding fracking, a process that Baldacci explains in some detail as he describes the area in and conditions under which the work is performed. Gas flares dot the countryside as pure methane is burned and fills the atmosphere with C02 -- to the consternation of environmentalists. But Baldacci's approach is even-handed, never permitting the narrative to become judgmental or preachy.

Readers of Baldacci's other series will be surprised and delighted when other beloved characters appear to assist Decker and Jamison when they need it most. Their appearances ramp up the action, and provide a seamlessly logical addition to the intricately imagined tale Baldacci tells.

Walk the Wire is full of intrigue delivered in Baldacci's signature straight-forward style. Short chapters and snappy dialogue, especially between Decker and Jamison, partners and roommates who know each other well and always have each other's back, punctuate a thriller that is action-packed, replete with complicated small-town relationships, and completely entertaining.

It is also poignant and touching. Decker continues to be relatable and likable; despite his quirks, he is empathetic because the devastation and loneliness of loss is universally understood, as is hope. "Time did not heal all wounds for him. It barely touched them, in fact. It was like pouring iodine on a cancerous tumor." But Decker has made a decision to move forward and keep living, even as he never forgets.

The Memory Man saga does not end with Walk the Wire. Baldacci says, “I don’t want to pull the curtain on this guy completely open, because the magic tends to fade." Fortunately for Amos Decker fans, there is more magic to come.

A graduate of the University of Virginia Law School, David Baldacci first worked as a trial lawyer, and later a corporate lawyer in Washington, D.C.

But he was a writer long before that, starting at age 8 when his mother gave him a notebook so he could write down his stories. He credits her with providing the spark that led him to become a New York Times best-selling author. Baldacci's 40 adult novels have sold more than 130 million copies, are available in 45 languages and in 180 countries. Several have also been adapted for TV and movies.

Besides that, he’s found time to pen seven children’s novels. And if that isn’t impressive enough, consider this: he’s not yet 60. That means, in addition to writing all those trial briefs when he worked as an attorney, Baldacci has turned out about two books a book a year since his first, "Absolute Power," was published in 1996. (Clint Eastwood later directed and starred in the film adaptation.)

As for Baldacci's mother, well, she confessed that she gave him that notebook not to set him on a career as an author but to keep him quiet.

Baldacci’s latest book, "Walk the Wire," continues the story of Amos Decker, a former football player whose injuries have rewired his brain so that he has some very strange abilities, including remembering everything, even stuff he wants to forget. Oh, and he sees the recently dead in electrifying shades of blue.

Now an FBI agent, Decker and his partner, Alex Jamison, find themselves trying to solve a gruesome murder in a small North Dakota town gone explosively big because of fracking.

“The body of a woman has been found,” said Baldacci, giving a brief overview of his sixth novel in the Decker series. “The only thing is, she’s already been autopsied. The oil boom town is full of danger on a number of levels for Decker.”

Baldacci has had an interest in boom-and-bust towns for awhile.

“They’re as close as we’re going to get to the wild, wild west again, at least hopefully,” he said. “And it was a way to take Decker out of his comfort zone and see what he could do under really dire situations.”

Decker’s total recall is actually a real, if exceedingly rare, syndrome called hyperthymesia. As for that blue body thing, well, it does exist, but maybe not in the way Decker experiences it.

“Synesthesia is the term, and it refers to a comingling of sensory pathways in the brain,” said Baldacci. “Decker seeing electric blue around death was one manifestation I came up with. The more common ones are seeing numbers in color or sounds in color.”

Besides the Amos Decker series, Baldacci has nine other series going, as well as numerous stand-alone books. When I ask him if he ever gets confused — he often is penning at least two books at one time — his answer is no.

“I created them all, so it’s as easy as remembering your kids. They’re all unique to me, ” he said, noting that he is currently writing two books — the next Atlee Pine thriller, and then, going back in time to 1949, the sequel to "One Good Deed."

If they’re like his kids, then maybe it’s not fair to ask if he has a favorite. After all, you wouldn’t ask a parent that. But I do anyway.

“I like all of my characters, or else I wouldn’t spend time with them,” he responded. “Decker is probably the most fun one to write about. It’s hard to predict what he’s going to say or do, and I like that about him. No parameters.”

That statement brings us to another fascinating aspect of Baldacci’s writing. He really doesn’t do more than mini outlines for his books.

“I like to let the plot and characters grow organically,” he said. “I like revelations and epiphanies along the way, those aha moments. If I surprise myself while writing the story, I’m going to knock readers on their butts.”

I was excited to read a brand new thrilling memory man book from bestselling author, David Baldacci. FBI Agent Amos Decker is back sent to North Dakota (of all places) after a hunter finds the remains of a woman. She appears to have had a post-mortem performed on her.
No-one knows why the FBI has been sent to investigate, not even Amos Decker and his partner Alex Jamison, not the local police and townspeople.

This sets up for a thrill ride with the backdrop of the North Dakota oil boom and the state's long history for mysterious Air Force bases.

What begins as a straight up murder investigation mystery gets kicked into high gear with the secrets the town holds that could have serious global implications that could endanger the entire country.

The book goes back and forth from a police procedural to a high-octane spy/military thriller that will leave you breathless and turning pages with some awesome crossovers that will leave you excited if you're a fan of David Baldacci’s stuff.

David Baldacci is a master storyteller which is once again proven with this exciting and fun thriller, Walk The Wire.