Michael Westen is a character in the television series Burn Notice. He is an ex-spy who was blacklisted. He has a burn notice out on him and the government placed him in Miami. He works with Sam Axe and Fiona Glenanne, an ex-girlfriend. What makes him so special is that he works with resources and he virtually has none since the government cut him off.
He doesn't need a lot to survive. He lives in a warehouse. He has a couple of mattresses. If he didn't have that, he could still survive.
He did not really have the greatest of childhoods, and because of that, that is why he ended up in the spy business originally. Despite the problems, he has, because he is in Miami he takes care of his mother. He even helped his mother's next door neighbor get money back when she was ripped by a couple of cons. Westen was good enough to not only return the money to the neighbor, but to all the other people conned by this con-artist.
He knows how to put together all kinds of spy things to use for tailing and such; mostly he goes down to the local hardware store, and cell phone store.
He helped his landlord's waitress with problems she had with the mob, so that she and her daughter could get back to ordinary life. He even talked to her daughter Sophie about guys, because she wanted to go to the Spring Formal.
The way he figures it, he has to do something to pay the rent, and more than likely he's just happy because it keeps him busy while he's researching who put the burn notice out on him.
