The 6:20 Man by David Baldacci
In The 6:20 Man (Grand Central Publishing), David Baldacci’s latest standalone thriller, Travis Devine hates his new job. It makes him feel like he’s a hamster on a treadmill. Every morning he hops on the 6:20 a.m. train from Mt. Kisco into Manhattan to work as an entry-level financial analyst at one of the world’s most prestigious investment firms. As a former Army Ranger with the medals and the wounds to prove his valor, he’s used to the grind, but in the Army he was serving his country. At his new grunt job in the financial sector, he’s serving billionaire Brad Cowl — and the all-mighty dollar — and they are chipping away at his soul bit by bit.
A mysterious email disrupts Travis’ routine when it informs him that his coworker and former girlfriend, Sara Ewes, is dead on the 52nd floor of their offices. Initially believed to be a suicide by hanging, the police quickly determine that Sara’s death is a homicide. Unfortunately for Travis, he’s the only one who’s received this missive, and all evidence fingers him as being the sole suspect in her murder. And he has no alibi.
FILLED WITH TWISTS AND TURNS
Travis’ past comes calling when he’s approached to — or as he sees it blackmailed into — secretly assisting a government investigation into his boss and the firm. The Army has cleared him of wrongdoing in the suspicious death of a fellow officer in Afghanistan, but the feds claim they have the goods on him. He either cooperates, or spends the rest of his life eating prison slop at Leavenworth.
The Army has molded Travis into a finely tuned war machine, but at his heart, he’s a good and moral man. To clear his name, he needs to find out who killed Sara. Nabbing his boss for international espionage, money laundering and SEC violations would be the icing on the cake. The bigger picture is whether Sara’s murder and Cowell’s potential crimes are connected, and if so, how. Both investigations lead Travis into the labyrinth of a potential high-stakes international conspiracy, which threatens his life and anyone tangentially related to Sara and his boss.
THE AUTHOR HAS CREATED A FLAWED, LIKABLE HERO
In true Baldacci form, the author has created a likable, flawed hero in Travis Devine. Wounded by an IED in Kandahar, Travis bears the weight of external and internal scars. Admittedly, he has daddy issues, having disappointed his father when he entered West Point. His honorable discharge led to him receiving an MBA and his father’s approval, but Travis could never live up to the success of his older siblings. His familial issues, the suspicious deaths of his fellow officers in the Middle East, and a lack of self-confidence in his new position haunt him. By working at a job he hates, Travis is flogging himself in self-imposed penance for those sins. He has a killer instinct, which serves him well in self-preservation — when it comes to guns, throwing a punch or sensing danger, but not necessarily when judging whom to trust.
The 6:20 Man is filled with twists and turns and menacing characters, and similar to Travis, the reader doesn’t know whom he should trust either. Are his computer hacker, law student and tech prodigy roommates who they say they are? What about the cops who interrogate him after Sara’s death and are trying to pressure him into admitting guilt for her murder? What about the gorgeous girl in the bikini who lives at the mansion he passes every day on the train into the city? What about his boss — is Cowl a self-made man, a fraud or a criminal? Is anyone who they say they are?
About David Baldacci:
David Baldacci has been writing since childhood, when his mother gave him a lined notebook in which to write down his stories. (Much later, when David thanked her for being the spark that ignited his writing career, she revealed that she’d given him the notebook to keep him quiet, “because every mom needs a break now and then.”)
A lifelong Virginian, David received his Bachelor’s degree from Virginia Commonwealth University and his law degree from the University of Virginia School of Law, after which he practiced law in Washington, D.C.
In addition to being a prolific writer, David is a devoted philanthropist, and his greatest efforts are dedicated to his family’s Wish You Well Foundation®. Established by David and his wife, Michelle, the Wish You Well Foundation supports family and adult literacy programs in the United States. In 2008 the Foundation partnered with Feeding America to launch Feeding Body & Mind, a program to address the connection between literacy, poverty and hunger. Through Feeding Body & Mind, more than 1 million new and gently used books have been collected and distributed through food banks to families in need.
David and his family live in Virginia.
