Tom Wood - The Anti-Hero Writer

Tom Wood is newest, hottest and the most exciting name in Thriller genre today. He exploded on the scene with The Hunter.Victor (no last name known) is an assassin. In face we are not even sure if Victor is his original name. A man who is at the top of his game.  A nameless, faceless assassin. Tom Woods chose to write the story of an anti-hero, a man who stays in shadows. A man who does every movement with economy so that none is wasted. A man who performs to the peak of his ability because he has conditioned his body to do so and above all a man who is supremely and extremely disconnected with the world. Victor is the perfect killer.

The Hunter introduced Victor, Bad Luck in Berlin showed a side of him that was human. The Enemy saw Victor moving from freelance assignments to working as a off books contractor exclusively for CIA under duress due to the events in The Hunter. The Game saw Victor come up against an fellow assassin as ruthless and as deadly as him, but even more cold blooded. Following the events of The Game Victor turned protector as a favor to an old acquaintance instead of being on the other side of the barrel in No Hold Barred. Victor came up against his toughest opponents in the form of Nieve Anderson and Sinclair.

What makes the story of an assassin so enthralling? Authors have always written about assassins, cloaked in mystique and suspense they have always been around serving as a plot device, brought in and out of the storyline as and when desired but never in spotlight. Never the lead. That changed when Tom Wood wrote about Victor.

Victor is a man with no past, no future but only present. Victor is us. There is a Victor in everyone of us. What makes Victor so intriguing or even exciting to read about is we want to live vicariously through him, live a life outside the long reach of the law, always in the moment, always in the tenterhooks and always waiting - ready to strike at a moments notice. It is this darkness that draws us to Victor and Wood does an amazingly good job of writing Victor in such a way that every book reveals one facet of Victors character and leaves you on the tenterhooks wanting for more.

Never has any author dare to glorify the villain, the person who does the dirty deed. Tom Wood has done that with Victor and thus break free of the shackles of right and wrong, the moral compass of the story shifts dramatically with Victor in the spotlight as the rights become wrong and the wrongs become right. This is essence is the true genius of Tom Wood.