The Enemy (Victor the Assassin) [Paperback]

Tom Wood is back with another fast-paced thriller featuring assassin-for-hire Victor, and the good news for anyone who has read the previous book, The Hunter, is that it has the same qualities of taut, vivid, descriptive writing combined with tense explosive action, espionage and conspiracy in colourful Asian and European settings. If you haven't read the first novel however, it won't matter either, because we're more or less back to scratch at the start of The Enemy. That comes at the cost of there not being any real character development - you'll get to the end of this book also and still not know much about Victor's personality other than his abilities as an amoral assassin - but the compensating factors of the novel being an extremely well-written conspiracy thriller more than make up for that.

If there's one thing you will quickly find out about Victor however, it's that as an international assassin-for-hire of the highest reputation, he may be an unquestioning tool to be used by higher powers to further their own agendas, but he's nobody's fool. He knows that in this business you need to look after your own back, and you don't take unnecessary risks. Victor has however reluctantly had to put aside the security of his lone-wolf status in order to fulfill an obligation that sees him working under contract to the CIA. Unofficially, of course. Victor asks no questions, but it soon becomes obvious that there is a pattern to the hits he is being asked to carry out - all of them involving major criminal international arms dealers - at very short notice and in highly risky circumstances that he would never normally accept. Victor however has proved himself capable of looking after himself in the past, and that proves to be the case here, when things inevitably don't go exactly according to plan.

There's a direct simplicity in the titles of the Victor books that reflects the single-minded approach of the writing, but there's also a certain amount of ambiguity in them that is characteristic of the subject and the more complex motives at play. In The Hunter, it wasn't always clear who was hunted and who was the hunter, and it's the same with The Enemy. In this line of business, it's not always possible to tell your friends from your enemies, and allegiances can be easily bought. If it's difficult to gain a grasp of Victor as anything more than a highly intelligent, amoral killing machine, he's a perfect reflection of qualities needed to survive in the world he operates in. Whether you want to look for anything deeper in the work, or whether it's even there, Tom Wood depicts this world of covert foreign policy activity and international conspiracy with meticulous detail, and he plots it with thrilling pace and conviction. Placed alongside the ever capable and intriguing Victor, the reader gains a great view of it all, and is undoubtedly in safe hands.

This is a sequel to The Hunter: 1 (Victor the Assassin), but if you haven't read that book it doesn't matter too much: all you need to know is that our "hero" Victor is an assassin who usually operates as a lone wolf but who is required to undertake some jobs for a clandestine CIA operation. As in the first book, we learn very little about Victor other than that he is cold, ruthless and very, very good at what he does. That doesn't stop the character from winning the reader over.

The book develops quickly with lots of action and there is also plenty of detail about weaponry and the various locations which give it a terrific sense of realism. Whilst the plot is engaging enough, what I particularly liked was the insight given into the way that an assassin operates. The (dead exciting) ending sets it up nicely for another installment, which I look forward to.

There are a number of writers mining similar territory: Sam Cain, Mark Greaney, Vince Flynn - but I think Tom Wood is the best in the genre. If you like the Bourne movies, I think it's a pretty safe bet that you'll like this book too.

Victor is an assassin at the top of his game. Situations have meant that Victor is now in the employ of the C.I.A. but after a swathe of rushed jobs from this new employer, he is less than impressed with the handling of their affairs. When a botched-job results in a chaotic situation between two international arms dealers, Victor begins to realise that his newfound empoyer may not have his best interests at heart, will Victor manage to survive this time?

The Enemy is Tom Woods second novel - the first being the critically acclaimed The Hunter - The book comes plastered in references to Lee Childs Jack Reacher character and basically every blurb refers to other authors in the same vein. So when I picked this up, I wasn't really expecting anything innovative or different from the usual fare of Lee Child, Matt Hilton & Harlen Coben with their one-man invincible characters (Jack Reacher, Joe Hunter & Myron Bolitar respectively).

What followed was one of the better written stories I have read in a while. Whilst Woods character Victor is a one-man show himself, he's the bad guy. Seemingly amoral and as close to inanimate as a human can get. We actually learn very little about Victor; but it's difficult not to root for the guy though when you see his MacGyver style skills and strict military discipline - the character is a true artisan. Woods writes very fluently in a descriptive style that is easy to follow, even the hand-to-hand fights are vivid and clear. The conspiracy element to this book means that it's not just another gung-ho novel, there is some surveillance, reconnaissance and espionage which makes for a tenser read than the character just waltzing in armed to the teeth, safe in the knowledge that the author would never kill off his main character. Most importantly; Victor is fallible and doesn't have the omnipotence gifted to every other lone-wolf character and this is very refreshing.

All in all, if you like Child, Hilton, Coben or Mariani then you are sure to love this book, but you'll come away thinking you've just read something slightly more intelligent than the novelisation of a straight-to-DVD action movie. Highly recommended for action-novel fans!