David West, the creation of novelist Dennis Wise, is a jailed felon serving a double life sentence and tagged an “ongoing public safety threat” by the authorities, who is nevertheless suspected of still wielding tremendous power — and making a lot of money — from his jail cell in one of America’s “most dangerous prisons.”

If “The Last Stop” has the ring of truth to it, no wonder. Dennis Wise has been imprisoned on a life sentence (he was released under an agreement with prosecutors in 2017). He’s been suspected by law enforcement of wielding power and influence from behind bars.

Doubt Wise’s bona-fides? The character of Cutty on David Simon’s HBO show “The Wire” was named for him.

Cutty’s real name on the show? Dennis Wise. Clearly, the real Dennis Wise knows whereof he speaks.

“Most of the stuff in the book is stuff I’ve seen, experiences,” says Wise, 67, living today in Anne Arundel County after being released from prison in July 2017, following a state court ruling that juries may have been instructed unfairly in trials before 1980. Wise had been convicted in the 1979 shooting death of 38-year-old James Reid.

— Chris Kaltenbach