In this Action Crime Espionage Thriller, Maxx O’Leary is a San Diego defense lawyer. All his clients are shit; he knows that and is well used to hearing lies. But he has a skill; he is Fey. His Celtic ancestry gave him second sight, just like his grandmother, who was Fey and could see spirits. He knew that back in the dark ages, when reason was thrown out the window, the Catholic Church hung people like him and his grandmother as being possessed by the devil.
To Maxx, it is both a blessing and a curse to know when someone is lying. And that means he’s permanently single. When women find out he knows when they are lying, even telling the little social lies, i.e. ‘you look so pretty in that dress,’ knowing they look awful, they leave. It hurts, but he resigns himself to being permanently single. Much less stressful and that is now his lot in life.
But if he knows the lies, he can work out the truth. He keeps his skill quiet as it would destroy his legal defense business. Most of his shit clients would not want their lawyer to know when they were lying, which is most of the time. So Maxx says nothing.
Then he gets a stinker of a case. His new client is a young, married, male music teacher. He is accused of having sex with a beautiful, mature-looking, fifteen-year-old student and getting her pregnant. His client denies it happened, but the lies his client tells lets Maxx know it’s true. But all is not as it seems. There were lies told by everybody, including the girl. Maxx finally gets to the truth, and he gets his client off. The Police are upset and assume the information he used to solve this case must have been obtained by illegal wiretapping. They demand to see his authorization. Then Maxx shows them how it was done. They realize they have no case and ask if he could help in cases involving the abuse of young children, where the truth is often very hard to find. He agrees.
But despite Maxx’s appeal for privacy on his skill, the detective lets on to a friend about Maxx, and a company, Intellect Systems, comes calling. The company’s Disruptive Operations Organizer, Mikala Rosenstein, offers Maxx three times what he makes as a lawyer just to take a two-week test with them. Despite reservations, greed sways him and he reluctantly agrees. The trial is successful and they want to hire him full-time. But Maxx is still unsure. He noticed guns were worn at the trial and is worried, but the money and his greed again rule and he agrees to one more trial. He joins the Intellect Systems team to help on a mission, but it all goes bad very quickly. It is the start of a wild, terrifying ride.
He uses his skills to help defeat a team of killer drug dealers just south of the border, and for the first time, sees the brutality of what is needed to succeed in disruptive operations against professional criminals. It sickens him, and he walks away from Intellect Systems. Then Mikala comes calling. . .