There are many themes in the book more significant than mathematics. For instance, that Wilson is a Native American and that his allies are Moslem terrorists are both quite significant. However, this website is devoted to mathematics in fiction and so I will focus my attention on a small detail.

At one point, just after he is released from prison, Wilson receives a FedEx package:

Wilson is supposed to have a PhD in engineering. (He is an inventor whose work was considered so dangerous that his ideas were classified by the government, setting up the conflict that is the basis for the plot.) Not all engineers learn advanced mathematics, but I do know of a few whose work in engineering leads them to sufficiently theoretical problems that they could be published in mathematics journals. So, this seems reasonable to me.

In fact, Documenta Mathematica is a real mathematics journal, founded by the German Mathematical Society in 1996 in response to the rising prices of scientific journals. (Its articles are available for free online and the print copies are produced at the lowest possible price.) Although most mathematics journals are produced monthly, it seems that the print version of DM is produced annually, so there would be no "winter issue". Similarly, since there are so many articles in it, the title of Wilson's article would not be on the "title page" but in the table of contents. The title of the article, though meaningless as far as I can tell, has a ring of authentic mathematics to it and does sound like the title of a research article.

I am not aware of any mathematician publishing research articles while in prison. However, there are anecdotes about math research being done in prison. (I was not able to find a reference just now, but didn't Mikhail Gromov supposedly do some of his work in prison?)

A helpful (anonymous) reader has written in with more information about mathematicians working in prisons.

• Andre Bloch produced all of his mathematical work during a 31 year prison sentence in France.
• Jean-Victor Poncelet (re)invented projective geometry while a Russian POW 1812-14.
• Jean Leray invented sheaf theory and spectral sequences while a German POW (1940-45). Leray was actually a PDEist--he switched to topology so the Germans wouldn't think they could use him.