The Killer by Tom Wood — Book Review | Victor the Assassin series (Full Spoilers)
No Limits: The Thriller PodcastFebruary 15, 202600:47:34

The Killer by Tom Wood — Book Review | Victor the Assassin series (Full Spoilers)

We’re reviewing The Killer by Tom Wood — the brutal introduction to Victor, a globe-trotting assassin who refuses to play by anyone’s rules.

We break down the tradecraft, the twists, and whether this modern hitman thriller still hits. Full spoiler warning — we get into everything.

🔗 WATCH, LISTEN, & FOLLOW US:

Website → https://thrillerpod.com 

YouTube → https://thrillerpod.com/youtube

Spotify → https://thrillerpod.com/spotify

Apple Podcasts → https://www.thrillerpod.com/apple

Instagram → https://thrillerpod.com/instagram 

Twitter/X → https://thrillerpod.com/twitter 

Facebook → https://thrillerpod.com/facebook

💬 JOIN OUR BOOK CLUB

Die-hard thriller fan? Join our Book Club on Patreon for exclusive discussions, behind-the-scenes insights, and 24/7 thriller conversation:

👉 https://thrillerpod.com/bookclub

📚 ABOUT NO LIMITS:

• The Mitch Rapp Podcast: Deep dives into Vince Flynn & Kyle Mills' Mitch Rapp series.

• The Scot Harvath Podcast: Exploring Brad Thor's high-octane Scot Harvath universe.

• The Thriller Podcast: Book reviews across the thriller genre: Jack Carr, Dan Brown, and more!

CHAPTERS

00:00 Introduction and Series Overview

02:00 Exploring Victor the Assassin

04:47 Action and Espionage Elements

09:55 Character Dynamics and Relationships

13:01 Villains and Plot Development

20:04 Final Thoughts and Scorecard

28:49 Plot Analysis and Cohesion

31:07 Character Development and Intrigue

33:16 Exploring Good and Bad Characters

34:10 Setting and Atmosphere

40:21 Cover Art and Presentation

41:03 Character Backstory and Future Prospects

#TomWood #TheKiller #VictortheAssassin #AuthorInterview #ThrillerBooks #ThrillerPodcast #BookPodcast #BookReview #MilitaryThriller #SpyThriller #PoliticalThriller #NoLimitsPodcast


00:00:17
Hey guys, I'm balding, Chris. And I'm balding, Mike.

00:00:23
And welcome back to this week's The Bald Cast.

00:00:26
No, No Limits, The Thriller podcast.

00:00:28
How you doing today, Mike? All right, you had to hit me

00:00:31
with that comment to start us off, but all right, let's let

00:00:34
that one go. Although if we try to finish

00:00:36
this series by Tom Wood with all the other series we have going

00:00:40
on, we might be completely bald by the time we get caught up.

00:00:44
I, I want you to go back and look at our hairlines from when

00:00:48
we started this podcast and see like how far they've, they've,

00:00:51
they've tracked up. GPT analyze our hairlines over

00:00:55
the last six years that. 'D be a funny, a funny thing to

00:00:59
do. Yeah.

00:01:00
No, the the killer, Tom Wood. Let's let's kick it off, man.

00:01:03
This is this is a good one. Something new.

00:01:06
I feel like in 2025 our shtick was starting debut books and

00:01:09
almost expanding too much. And we while we said we wanted

00:01:12
to scale that back, we have a very passionate patron dedicated

00:01:17
to this series, Adam Kay. We got a shout out Adam.

00:01:21
It's part of our Thriller Pod book club.

00:01:23
And thanks to him and how he's always giving us updates on the

00:01:26
Victor of the Assassin series, saying it's right up there with

00:01:29
Mitch Rapp in his opinion. And we had to jump in one as a

00:01:33
thank you to him and all of our patrons.

00:01:34
It was a great recommendation. And I am just curious when a

00:01:37
series gets praised that that's, is that good?

00:01:41
I, we got to check it out, especially from someone we trust

00:01:43
like him. So shout out to Adam and the

00:01:45
rest of the patron book club if you want to join this group.

00:01:48
It's an elite group of thriller fans and we meet quarterly, have

00:01:53
virtual Hangouts. We do a book of the month, and

00:01:56
then we also have an ongoing 24/7 group chat.

00:01:58
So if you want to be a part of that, be the reason that we can

00:02:01
make more podcasts, just visit thrillerpod.com.

00:02:04
Click the book club tab to learn more.

00:02:06
And another way to help subscribe on YouTube.

00:02:08
We have a YouTube channel where you could see these balding

00:02:11
heads every week talking books. So please head over there, like,

00:02:15
comment and subscribe. If you haven't seen us on video

00:02:17
yet, consider switching on over to YouTube so you can join the

00:02:20
fun. Yeah, no, it's, it's this was a

00:02:24
nice little change up. You know, I we're also in the

00:02:26
myths of reading a hard copy of Brad and and Ward Larson's cold

00:02:31
0. And so, you know, wanted had

00:02:34
time to mix this one in and you know, I'm always excited to

00:02:38
start a new, you know, new series, debut book from an

00:02:42
author or debut book in a series.

00:02:46
And you know, right off the bat you you had kind of said

00:02:50
something and when you said it, it completely 100% clicked for

00:02:54
me. This book read like it had that

00:02:59
Vince Flynn esque. I don't want to say like not

00:03:03
noir, but just like that Flinnian tone to it.

00:03:08
Sure. But at the same time, it had a

00:03:12
lot of elements of the Gray man. So it was like if, if Vince and

00:03:15
the Gray man, you know, if Mitch and the Gray man had like a

00:03:17
baby, like and and put it out as as an initial book, this is what

00:03:23
this book would be. If they had a Russian baby,

00:03:25
yeah. A Russian baby, Yeah.

00:03:28
Oh, so this question is he Russian?

00:03:29
Is he we don't Oh yes, true, he has a good friend in Russia norm

00:03:32
of which we're going to get into.

00:03:34
But to give you a little spoiler filled hot take first reaction.

00:03:38
I'm right with you Chris. It's some parts equally as

00:03:41
ridiculous and fun as the grey man, like very low

00:03:44
believability, but then other parts of the wet work and you

00:03:49
know what an operative is doing and thinking and head on a

00:03:52
swivel in the streets, always getting the drop on people.

00:03:55
It's straight up real life MIT trap, like dark, gritty in the

00:03:59
boots doing the things on the ground.

00:04:03
It it almost has elements of both of those series, the equal

00:04:06
parts ridiculous, each apart equal parts real world, real

00:04:09
operatives, real tactics. So I I don't know what to make

00:04:13
of this besides I call it perfectly average.

00:04:18
It's everything you want in a thriller from the amazing set

00:04:22
action pieces, the really deep nuke on the loose essentially

00:04:27
plot line. Also some really, I would say, I

00:04:30
would say really good villains who are also in true Vince Flynn

00:04:34
style inside of our own government and our own

00:04:36
intelligence apparatus. So you get a little.

00:04:39
Bit in a while so it was nice to go back to that.

00:04:41
It is it is you get you get a little bit of that double agent

00:04:44
feel, a conspiracy, A cabal. Again, also very Flinnian, very

00:04:48
Thor. So it's hitting on all of those

00:04:50
elements and the writing is very, very clean and concise.

00:04:55
But when you put it all together and you're just working through

00:04:57
the book, it's average. But it but it's average in a

00:05:00
really good down home kind of way.

00:05:04
It's just like what we typically like in a thriller done really

00:05:07
well. How much of it is super

00:05:08
memorable? I'm not so sure.

00:05:11
Does it do enough to make me want to read all whatever 20

00:05:13
books in the series? Also not so sure.

00:05:17
But I'm definitely curious to maybe skip around and hear what

00:05:19
the heavy hitters are later in the series.

00:05:23
Yeah, average to me almost it's correct, but it it almost sounds

00:05:27
like a, you know, a dig. I guess a better word would be

00:05:32
solid. Like it's it's it's a solid

00:05:34
starting book. You know, I I think it did.

00:05:37
It definitely did enough for me to make me want to pick up the

00:05:39
next book. And if it's like all these other

00:05:43
series where, you know, you get more out of it if you read them

00:05:47
in in order, but you don't necessarily have to.

00:05:49
I cut them to an agree. Like I would love if people

00:05:51
could pick out their top, you know, their memorial days, their

00:05:55
consent to kill version of whatever this series is, you

00:05:58
know, give that to me and and let's dive into that.

00:06:03
You know it. But at the same time, like you

00:06:05
said, there's nothing that like super, super stuck out to me.

00:06:09
But it was a fun ride while I was on it.

00:06:11
You know, I wasn't disappointed. I you know, there's been times

00:06:14
where I've read books where it's like, why did I read that?

00:06:17
Definitely did not feel that way for this one at all.

00:06:20
No, completely, and it's before we get into spoilers, but folks,

00:06:24
there are a couple of set action pieces that are incredible.

00:06:27
The one to open this book and then the one to kind of wrap up

00:06:30
the book, Tanzania. I just think both of those are

00:06:33
really amazing bookends. And for Tom Wood to come out

00:06:36
swinging. It's almost as if the scene in

00:06:40
Consent to Kill where Mitch Rap was at his peak and went ham at

00:06:44
the house in Leesburg. I think the single scene where

00:06:46
he killed the most amount of guys, 15 maybe something like

00:06:50
that, We see Victor the assassin going that nuts right out the

00:06:55
jump like chapter 1. He's doing some of the most

00:06:58
insane badass stuff, sniper V sniper outclassing dudes.

00:07:02
So if that doesn't tease you to know exactly what those two

00:07:06
scenes are, you need to read them.

00:07:08
And and I said, I'm not sure what's memorable.

00:07:10
I think those action pieces would be, I'm already thinking

00:07:13
to the scorecard. Action is absolutely the

00:07:16
strength, I would say of this book.

00:07:18
So those two set action pieces, even a car chase in Tanzania, a

00:07:22
hand to hand combat, fight in the surf, That was an incredible

00:07:27
ride. So for all the quibbles I'm

00:07:31
going to have with some of the plotting, some of the pacing,

00:07:33
some of the storyline development, I cannot critique

00:07:36
this for action. I'm just going to say right now

00:07:38
it's a 10 out of 10 on action. Yeah, I would agree with you on

00:07:41
that. And I think the other thing that

00:07:43
highlights well is the espionage bit of it in in terms of the

00:07:47
plot. Like I feel like Tom Wood does a

00:07:48
really good job of, you know, adding that Lake Lake Ray esque

00:07:54
story to Victor. You know, we don't get very much

00:07:57
of A back story about him. That's that's like the one thing

00:07:59
that's like kind of lacking in this.

00:08:01
You know, it's a teaser though. Sure.

00:08:03
And I feel like, you know, he left that open to not bog down

00:08:07
the story. The story did not need any more

00:08:09
in it, you know, but definitely a teaser, you know, obviously,

00:08:13
hopefully that gets played out through the next couple books or

00:08:16
through the whole series, whatever.

00:08:20
But yeah, I felt like his, the way he works and, and and you

00:08:24
know, all the different espionage pieces, how he's

00:08:27
operating as a spy and an operator definitely 100% gets

00:08:31
that correct. Yeah, he's leaving caches and

00:08:34
places, weapons, passports, documents.

00:08:37
I I think that's brilliantly done that and they do save his

00:08:39
bacon a few times. So I think the back story,

00:08:42
knowing who he is, how we got trained in these skills, we kind

00:08:46
of see him in the middle of his career.

00:08:47
You know, he's taking a lot of jobs in the past.

00:08:49
We know for various people that that were mentioned, he has

00:08:53
contacts strolling into Saint Petersburg and and and looking

00:08:57
for dudes that he thought were friends.

00:09:00
All of those I think are really good teases that you're right.

00:09:04
I think I I would I would take that back.

00:09:06
I I think I wouldn't want to read the second.

00:09:08
I definitely would want to read the second.

00:09:09
And then after that, maybe skip around, skip around.

00:09:11
But great series. And there's another thing I have

00:09:14
to bring up. So we got to drop the spoiler

00:09:16
warning. So full episode coming full

00:09:19
spoilers from here on out. The girl I, I really enjoyed the

00:09:25
broker and what a tease in the first like third.

00:09:29
We don't know exactly who he's working for.

00:09:31
He doesn't even know who gave him the contracts.

00:09:33
It's, it's like a double-blind, you know, he's totally isolated

00:09:37
from that information. He, he just gets the name goes,

00:09:40
gets the file, makes the kill, completes the mission.

00:09:43
And to find out that it's this woman and that they, they have a

00:09:46
pretty good bond. And when he's teasing her out, I

00:09:49
just thought their meat was really incredible.

00:09:51
These two people who have worked so closely, been responsible for

00:09:55
each other in many ways, like kept each other alive by

00:09:58
executing missions and communicating them and keeping

00:10:00
this dance going, actually coming face to face was really

00:10:04
cool to see it. It almost reminded me of

00:10:06
something out of like a born and, you know, Oh yeah.

00:10:09
Trying to get information about who's, who's running you, who's

00:10:12
working you, who's feeding you Intel and like, put the memories

00:10:14
together. And he has to test her.

00:10:17
And, and I think it was really on thin ice when he's like going

00:10:20
to kill her if she says the wrong thing a couple of times

00:10:22
she makes the wrong moves. He's like ready to, to end her

00:10:25
right then and there. And they realize they need each

00:10:28
other. I I thought their relationship

00:10:29
developing was a lot of fun and then it ended.

00:10:33
Yeah, I was really disappointed with that and I first of all,

00:10:37
it's a bold choice and IA 100% thought, OK, he's setting her up

00:10:43
like they're going to become a team, like she's going to become

00:10:46
his Marcus, his Scott Coleman, like she's around, you know,

00:10:50
whoever you want to say, like future books going forward.

00:10:53
They fall for each other. Or that, you know, and I

00:10:57
actually thought that the character development with her,

00:10:59
like I was buying into her as a as a good character going

00:11:03
forward. Like I thought, you know, that

00:11:04
would be a good foil. Obviously she's a good analyst

00:11:08
operative, you know, not, not quite wet work, but you know,

00:11:11
can do the computer stuff behind the scenes stuff she's been.

00:11:13
Making stuff. Yeah, she's able to pose to, you

00:11:16
know, falsely pose as a bank to get information, like she could

00:11:20
definitely do grifting and stuff like that.

00:11:23
And then to get that 100% pulled out from under you with that

00:11:26
kill, Oh yeah, fuck man. You, you put in all that work

00:11:30
and then boom, that was like you said, that was, that was a shock

00:11:34
to me. That was a shock.

00:11:35
He raised the stakes. Yeah, it was a shock to me.

00:11:37
And I think it came at a point of the book where I need a

00:11:39
little wake up call. Another reason is because this

00:11:42
read character which got to talk about how he's introduced, it's

00:11:47
a little quibble. Like I I said before, I'm going

00:11:49
to have, but the fact that we just raised the stakes of now

00:11:52
it's one it's personal. So thinking Mitch Raffer and

00:11:55
Stanley never make it personal. It's personal.

00:11:58
And we learned at the end, right when he finds out this Proctor

00:12:02
person who he calls the administrator in the hospital is

00:12:04
going to hire him one of his conditions as he wants to know

00:12:06
about her and he shares some information about her and he

00:12:10
says I want everything on her. He wants to kind of honor her

00:12:13
memory. So it definitely made it

00:12:14
personal. I also wonder if it's going to

00:12:19
have an effect downstream in the series of is he going to be a

00:12:23
different type of killer now? Is it going to almost temper him

00:12:27
to say there are things in life that might matter more than just

00:12:29
executing these missions? Like, I thought I found somebody

00:12:32
who I could trust and. Or does it make him go?

00:12:35
Yeah. Or does it make him go the other

00:12:37
way and just go hog and become an even more indiscriminate

00:12:40
killer? I feel like it might temper him

00:12:41
a little, but and, and kind of see the humanity in people that

00:12:45
she might have brought to him. I don't know though.

00:12:47
So that I, I think both her introduction and her death are

00:12:50
two things I really liked about the book and that could have

00:12:53
potential consequences in future books.

00:12:55
And I think really are going to probably change who he is and be

00:12:59
part of his arc moving forward. Even though she's gone, I think

00:13:02
she's going to play an important role in his ARC book 2345.

00:13:06
Yeah, and I guess it says something to all right, you, you

00:13:09
maybe set up this plan of like, I, I could completely see that.

00:13:13
All right, she's in book 2, you know, and then she gets killed

00:13:16
off in book 3, like, but here he made the choice of like, all

00:13:19
right, I'm, I'm just going to do it.

00:13:20
I, I have one shot writing this book.

00:13:22
Boom. Let's get her out of the way and

00:13:26
then establish that revenge factor that, you know, like you

00:13:30
said, turn of conscience, turn of motivation for him.

00:13:36
Yeah, it was an interesting choice.

00:13:38
Very bold. Very.

00:13:40
Bold. I think if that's the good guys,

00:13:43
though, both Victor and the woman are handled very, very

00:13:45
well. Curious your thoughts on the bad

00:13:49
guys, the cabal, whether it's on the inside at the highest level

00:13:52
like Ferguson and Sykes completely selling out and, you

00:13:56
know, this old timer spy in Ferguson, but then also the bad

00:14:00
guys with the the hired guns and particularly Reed because he

00:14:03
becomes the big bad in the second-half.

00:14:06
I would say. Were you fully satisfied with

00:14:10
them and their interactions? No.

00:14:14
Yeah. For me, I think 1.

00:14:17
I don't know why we were told that Sykes and Ferguson were the

00:14:20
bad guys so early. I mean that that's another

00:14:24
conscious choice. I I felt that that could have

00:14:26
been dragged out for much longer.

00:14:29
You know, that could have been the big drop at the end, right?

00:14:34
So we were let in pretty early, like, you know, we had way more

00:14:37
knowledge about the story than our protagonist did.

00:14:41
The other thing is like this read character, you know, it's

00:14:44
kind of setting it up to be, you know, like a lot of other series

00:14:47
we've we've dealt with where there's, you know, an equivalent

00:14:50
assassin that meets his match. Yep, Louis Gould, we're bringing

00:14:55
in Louis. Sure.

00:14:57
I felt like the story didn't. It's like one too many things.

00:15:01
It was. Forced.

00:15:01
Yeah, Yeah. Yeah, I understand you need to

00:15:04
have this whole clean up thing, but yeah, kind of bringing it

00:15:09
back to Bourne, that was a storyline of the second, you

00:15:11
know, in in Bourne Supremacy, like you're kind of trying to

00:15:14
put all your baskets into one again.

00:15:17
Like, hey, I have this one book. I have all these ideas, I'm just

00:15:20
put them all in again. I don't know the story about

00:15:24
like how he got into this, you know what Tom Wood did before

00:15:28
this. But to me, it felt like there

00:15:31
was a more meat on the bone for a lot of these various

00:15:34
storylines that you could have fleshed out through the course

00:15:37
of multiple books. And it just got wrapped up into

00:15:40
into this one. Yeah.

00:15:42
I felt like that the Russian connection of it was engaging

00:15:47
enough in terms of, you know, bringing in this SVR Asian or is

00:15:52
he SVR or is he I forget which GRE he's he's SVR right I.

00:15:56
Thought SVR. Yeah.

00:15:58
You know, bringing him. Him bringing in him his element

00:16:02
having Spetsnaz, you know, he is trying to rise the ranks.

00:16:07
He's able to like get his quote UN quote only friend to like

00:16:10
turn on him. I felt like that was enough, You

00:16:14
know of a motivation to have you know that and then you didn't

00:16:18
have to then throw in this older ultimate killer like equivalent

00:16:21
assassin in in the Reed character.

00:16:24
Yeah, Reed's introduction just seemed forced.

00:16:28
And it's almost why I, I kind of go back to perfectly average

00:16:31
because he's just pulling on so many tropes and the trope of,

00:16:34
well, I guess we got a call in the big guns and I know a guy

00:16:37
and he's going to clean up all your mess.

00:16:40
So it's just like, we've already tried hiring killer after killer

00:16:43
after killer. Why wasn't this guy just

00:16:45
assigned the job in the 1st place?

00:16:47
I, it was almost just too much like I know a guy.

00:16:50
Let me let me call him my guy with without the back story of

00:16:54
who is this guy? Why should we trust this guy?

00:16:57
And then here's the other trope which kind of bothered me to

00:17:01
establish his bona fides. And I'm kind of sick that I'm of

00:17:05
seeing this trope everywhere. He's just randomly walking

00:17:09
through like a gritty part of town and thugs come up on him

00:17:11
and he he's just got to tell the thugs like today's not your day

00:17:15
or like, no, you're not going to want to do that bad move and

00:17:18
then just knock out these thugs. And there's no reason for it.

00:17:21
It was like a little side scene, whatever It was one of the first

00:17:24
times we actually see Reed. I I just don't need a guy to be

00:17:28
established by just some random St. thugs come up to them and he

00:17:31
just knocks them all out. And the whole purpose to me is

00:17:34
just to say, see, look, he really is a bad ass.

00:17:38
We're calling him in because we already know he's a badass.

00:17:40
Like Ferguson told us that we don't need a random street fight

00:17:43
that serves no purpose. So just a minor kind of debut

00:17:47
book. I think Trope that he's leaning

00:17:49
a little too heavy into occasionally that.

00:17:53
And he, you know, he perfectly executes these assassinations in

00:17:59
terms of like, cleaning up the list.

00:18:01
And then he inevitably, like, you know, does the ultimate sin

00:18:08
and and doesn't follow up on his mission when he's timed, you

00:18:10
know, thinks that he kills Victor like.

00:18:12
Exactly. That to me you're, you're trying

00:18:15
to have your cake and eat it too.

00:18:17
You're trying to both have this guy be the ultimate, but then

00:18:19
but then also at the same time in the same book, he just

00:18:22
happens to mess up and and not get our killer.

00:18:25
Amateur move. Yeah, like I don't know that was

00:18:28
just a little 2 force like that looks.

00:18:30
I mean sure the explosion scene like at the him rigging the

00:18:33
thing like was was cool and all but it just it didn't make

00:18:38
sense. Don't set him up as the guy if

00:18:40
you're going to have him walk away from that OP and go.

00:18:42
I'm confident I killed him and meanwhile the guy gets away.

00:18:47
You're right, you can't have your cake and eat it too.

00:18:50
Now what does kind of bring Reed back is his death.

00:18:55
The hand to hand scene after after the craziness of Tanzania

00:18:59
and the car chase. The car chase Insane.

00:19:02
The car chase was wild and really fun As for that to end up

00:19:06
with that hand to hand combat in the surf with the knife and

00:19:10
victor's like using AT shirt wrapped around his forearm to

00:19:12
defend blows over and over and over and this thing's just

00:19:16
getting dragged out. Ultimately gets the drop on him,

00:19:19
kills him right there, gets the knife, the ceramic blade.

00:19:23
I I think Reed's final wrap up was really incredible, but not

00:19:29
much else was handled very well with him.

00:19:34
But but the the flip side is I kind of liked Ferguson and

00:19:37
Sykes. I like this old timey spy who's

00:19:39
selling out. He has his protege who is making

00:19:44
a few missteps. He's got to direct them and keep

00:19:46
them in check and he's freaking out.

00:19:48
And Ferguson is trying to keep this cool head of like being

00:19:51
above all this why he sold out. Maybe we could have put a little

00:19:55
bit more effort into. So while I kind of like them, we

00:19:59
moved away from them in lieu of the Russia plot and the Russia

00:20:02
plot. I actually really liked in the

00:20:05
beginning when Victor has to go meet Normov and ask him for a

00:20:09
favor. And like I'm trying to parse out

00:20:11
if these guys really were friends.

00:20:13
It seems like they're they were business acquaintances.

00:20:16
And so while they trust each other, they don't have that deep

00:20:19
personal kinship with each other.

00:20:22
And that, ultimately, is what screws Victor.

00:20:25
And that, and I really like that the scene where, you know,

00:20:29
Normov is supposed to meet up and give him the goods and

00:20:31
Victor, you know, plans the whole drop, executes it like

00:20:34
executes it perfectly by setting up as a sniper as Overwatch

00:20:37
sees, you know, as Overwatch sees people there.

00:20:39
It's that's very boring. He knows he sold them out.

00:20:41
Yeah, it's great. Straight scene out of out of one

00:20:44
of the Bourne movies. You know, we have that it's

00:20:49
great. And then it kind of like just it

00:20:51
was also kind of like this comedy of errors where just so

00:20:55
happens this best notch show up at the same they are all staying

00:20:58
at the same hotel. And we get this like kick off

00:21:00
of, you know, we have that we have these other corrupt former

00:21:03
Seals. We have Sykes is there.

00:21:05
We have the Alvarez that the guy who's investigating shows up.

00:21:09
Like, yeah, like all that stuff was like cool.

00:21:12
Like, in terms of like the culmination of like the action

00:21:15
and then leading into the car chase, but it got to be just

00:21:19
like a little too much. It was too much and that's when

00:21:22
we're starting to muddy the waters.

00:21:23
So all the introduction, the Russia stuff was good.

00:21:26
His escape ultimately after he realizes Normov sold him out,

00:21:29
turned on him. Also pretty good how they all

00:21:32
end up in Tanzania where Sykes just all of a sudden like gets,

00:21:36
I'm just going to call them nukes.

00:21:37
Get gets the missiles and like has this Intel is loading him on

00:21:40
a truck. Wait, someone's there to stop

00:21:43
him. A team of Russians oh wait,

00:21:45
Alvarez is on their trail. Alvarez has to fight a dude and

00:21:48
so the trucks getting away Alvarez fighting a guy.

00:21:50
Meanwhile victor and Reed are both behind the tailing it out

00:21:53
of there fighting each other with a chase.

00:21:56
It was like a really cool, non-stop edge of your seat

00:21:59
scene, but it's almost like, why are all these people here?

00:22:03
And like there's there's too many cooks in the kitchen.

00:22:05
So it went a little off the rails.

00:22:07
But as just a pure thrill ride it it it checked every box.

00:22:11
So that's one of those things action.

00:22:13
I'm going very, very high, but plot and buy in.

00:22:16
I have to be like, is this just a little too much?

00:22:19
Is a little too over the top? Yeah, no, I agree.

00:22:23
And I don't know, for some reason the the Ferguson and

00:22:26
Psych stuff just didn't. Didn't land.

00:22:29
Didn't land for me. I I don't know, maybe if it's

00:22:31
like I wanted more of that. I like I wanted to be more in

00:22:34
their head and you have them driving it a little bit more,

00:22:38
you know, and maybe as a consequence of getting these,

00:22:40
you know, we get both the Russian plot and their plot.

00:22:43
You know, if we picked one or the other, maybe one of them

00:22:47
would have would have risen at the top and and it would have

00:22:49
been better. And then just to have, you know,

00:22:55
like the this this guy, I don't know, their relationship was

00:22:58
just like also super weird, like the Sykes and Ferguson of it

00:23:01
all, this trust fund kid who he's really just in it for the

00:23:04
money. Whereas the other guy has his

00:23:05
deep rooted, you know, hatred of, you know, being essentially

00:23:11
believing he was scorned and and turned on by his country, which

00:23:15
is believable, sure. But, you know, then the fact

00:23:20
that the other guy wants to, you know, doesn't want the nukes

00:23:22
being sold to North Korea, like, you know, but in the end, he

00:23:25
ultimately goes with it because he knows he's either going to

00:23:27
get killed or he gets the money. So it's the highest bidder.

00:23:30
Yeah. See, I'm OK with it in that that

00:23:35
career civil servant bureaucrat, you know, basically the foot

00:23:39
soldier all of a sudden has this like harbored, has harbored this

00:23:45
resentment for so long. And so takes this dramatic step

00:23:48
of like, I can go out with a bang.

00:23:50
I can get the Pi can get people back for what they did to me.

00:23:53
Kind of just like bitter old timey person.

00:23:56
And I feel like I've seen so many stories of that in the Cold

00:23:59
War with like a random white dude who worked for whatever

00:24:03
government agency just start selling things to the Cubans.

00:24:06
And it's like, why on earth are you the person who is selling

00:24:11
things to the Cubans? And it's like they had the

00:24:13
secret passionate zeal for Viva la Revolution or something, but

00:24:17
they everyday put on their suit and tie, went to work, collected

00:24:20
the intelligence, did the thing. And but they're secretly holding

00:24:23
on to this world where they just want revenge or they want to

00:24:25
change the world. So I, I guess we could have

00:24:28
gotten more into Ferguson's psyche of what what led him

00:24:30
there, but also an opportunity for the future, perhaps some

00:24:34
sort of back story, Victor's origin, Ferguson and his, you

00:24:40
know, problems that he has with his government.

00:24:43
Yeah, it's, it's almost half. It's at the same time it's half

00:24:47
baked, right. But it's also half baked because

00:24:49
we stuffed the oven with, you know, too many things for the

00:24:52
Thanksgiving meal. You're trying to put the Turkey

00:24:54
into the stuffing and the sweet potatoes and you're trying to

00:24:57
put it all in the oven at once. And it's like, OK, because that

00:25:00
the temperature is so diluted and everything's kind of

00:25:02
lukewarm again. That's why I come back to

00:25:05
perfectly average. Not in a very bad way, not in a

00:25:08
Ding kind of way. But you're doing everything

00:25:11
right that kind of thrillers should do, but you're almost

00:25:16
just checking boxes by doing them and making them

00:25:18
entertaining because you're a really good writer.

00:25:21
But are you a really honed in storyteller?

00:25:24
And that I don't think I see Tom Wood getting there yet.

00:25:28
And that's probably the clearest thing about this being a debut

00:25:31
book. It's not a debut book because

00:25:32
you write scenes that are confusing.

00:25:34
It's not a debut book because you write storylines that have

00:25:38
no impact. And I don't care about.

00:25:40
It's just that you're trying to do all the things you probably

00:25:42
think you're supposed to in a first book and then in a in a

00:25:45
thriller book. And it's like, well, maybe pick

00:25:47
and choose or just lean into the ones that you're passionate

00:25:50
about or, or find the ones that are going to be unique to your

00:25:52
voice. I don't know if this book

00:25:54
establishes a Tom Wood voice for me or a Victor the.

00:25:57
Assassin voice So it's it's it's like there's too much meat and

00:26:03
sausage, you know, like you're trying to stuff too much in the

00:26:05
casing and this and I I feel like we've read books like this

00:26:11
where they do the same thing, but because the writing isn't as

00:26:15
good it's even like it's that much worse.

00:26:17
It's worse, you know, like this book is saved by how well it's

00:26:21
written and how well it, you know, comes through to us.

00:26:25
It's not confusing in that sense, but it could have could

00:26:30
have done with like a little bit of editing in terms of all

00:26:32
right, let's let's pick and choose and then let's highlight

00:26:36
those a little bit more and then and then maybe those things

00:26:38
would sink so. Yeah, little less is more and

00:26:42
and then on top. Less is more, yeah.

00:26:43
We need to talk about these missiles, which apparently the

00:26:46
Russians have this really incredible technology and are

00:26:49
way ahead of us. And these missiles could wipe

00:26:51
out our fleet without us being able to defend ourselves.

00:26:55
Almost read to me like a nuke on the loose.

00:26:57
Let's just go find them again. A little trophy.

00:27:01
So maybe that works for some people.

00:27:05
Didn't quite work for me. So again, that's a kind of a

00:27:07
plot miss, if you will. It became a Side Story.

00:27:10
Like once he's digging up these missiles out of the ocean, it's

00:27:12
like, oh, kind of forgot. That was the whole purpose of

00:27:15
right, Everything like the flash drive, I forgot, I forgot.

00:27:18
That was kind of the whole purpose, the flash.

00:27:19
Drive. Was the flash drive even meant?

00:27:21
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, that that almost got

00:27:23
lost in the sauce. So, anything else on your mind

00:27:28
before we scorecard this one? No, I think let's let's get in

00:27:32
the scorecard, man. I gave my action, so I guess I

00:27:37
just have to hear from you. You agree?

00:27:38
I I think I'd be OK with a nine as well.

00:27:41
I think I'm going to go nine. Yeah.

00:27:43
I'll leave a little bit of room for let's, let's see what Tom

00:27:46
Wood maybe can do blow me away with some action in the future.

00:27:50
Like, you know, it's very good. This is definitely like the

00:27:53
highlight of the book. And like you said, the thing

00:27:57
that sticks out to me that's most memorable that I remember

00:28:00
is definitely the open set piece in terms of like just

00:28:04
establishing Victoria, you know, Victor, how he's going to

00:28:07
operate, what he can do. And then, you know, getting

00:28:10
these various, you know, set action pieces throughout and

00:28:13
then culminating with that hand to hand combat at the very end,

00:28:16
like lights out. Completely agree, I think the

00:28:20
one reason I'm also going to stick with the 10 out of 10 is I

00:28:23
forgot the Swiss chalet. We kind of also got to see his

00:28:27
abode where he kind of can hang out, decompress.

00:28:31
I even forgot about that. You throw in this other sniper.

00:28:34
Yeah, exactly. Yet another sniper after he just

00:28:37
took out the previous sniper at the the French Hotel.

00:28:40
So I really like how often sniping comes up.

00:28:43
And then the Dragunov and in Russia more, another sniping

00:28:48
scene. I really like you.

00:28:50
Didn't need read. You didn't need read.

00:28:52
Because that one, you still don't need read and two, maybe

00:28:54
you cut the Swiss part. As much as I liked it, it was

00:28:58
cool. You either cut that or you cut

00:29:00
one of the other things. It just added too much like I

00:29:02
forgot it happened, but when it was happening, that was also a

00:29:06
lot of fun to read. So I think I think for action,

00:29:09
I'm going to stay with 10 out of 10 because I like that.

00:29:11
I thought it was good when it comes to the pacing of these

00:29:13
things. A little too jam packed the by

00:29:17
and well, let's start with plot. Because plot is also pacing.

00:29:20
There's almost too many of them happening.

00:29:22
I like each individual 1. I don't know if I see the

00:29:24
through line all that much. And again, I don't like how it's

00:29:29
just grounded in somebody wants to recover missiles and sell

00:29:31
them. It just seemed like too easy of

00:29:34
a storyline to put together and I wasn't born into that part of

00:29:39
it. So plot is 6.

00:29:43
Too harsh because I'm kind of leaning towards it.

00:29:47
That's a little hard. I was going to go 7 but I made

00:29:50
it up. Seven, I made it up.

00:29:51
Yeah, you, I mean, essentially we're the same, right?

00:29:53
I'm, I'm, you know, so 9:00 and 7:10 and 6:00, it's the same,

00:29:57
same score. But yeah, I could.

00:29:58
See either way. It's right there.

00:30:00
So I think for buy in, excuse me, I don't know.

00:30:07
I think it's like a, you know, average is like a perfect three,

00:30:10
like a perfect three. It's exactly it's.

00:30:12
It'll be a 2 1/2 if. You want to go real average.

00:30:15
Sure, if you want to go real, be truly precise, but like you

00:30:18
know, it's it did enough for me that, like again, I'm bought

00:30:22
into wanting to know more about Victor.

00:30:24
I want to read more books, but in terms of truly getting me

00:30:28
sold on like this story being invested in like these nukes and

00:30:35
you know, these various different bunch of different

00:30:38
plots, you know, just the the cohesion there wasn't wasn't the

00:30:43
cohesion wasn't there. Yeah, yeah, I'll agree.

00:30:47
I'll round up two or three because of the broker.

00:30:50
I'm interested in the back story.

00:30:52
I was interested in her and their meet up.

00:30:55
So I think those little bits and pieces about Victor and his

00:30:59
life, the Swiss chalet, you know, I want to know like, and

00:31:04
how he got that, how he set up. I want to know how he became an

00:31:06
assassin, like right. I want the American assassin of

00:31:09
Victor, which is funny because there was a bad.

00:31:11
There's a bad victor I know. Every time I heard the name I

00:31:14
kept thinking about that. Because I liked him so much in

00:31:17
those elements of him, I'm going to round up two or three.

00:31:21
So I'm with you. This is all rolled into good

00:31:25
guys and bad guys. We're a little higher on good

00:31:27
guys. We're a little hot lower it

00:31:28
seems on bad guys. Where are you going to settle on

00:31:31
those two? I think for good guys, do I go

00:31:35
5? Is that too high?

00:31:36
Like maybe, maybe just like action and suspense, I should

00:31:41
leave a little bit of room for, for improvement.

00:31:44
But I thought that one, it's it, it sets up Victor very well.

00:31:46
I'm super intrigued by him. And I really like the girl.

00:31:50
I I like the broker, Yeah. So can maybe the deciding factor

00:31:54
because I'm also leaning to a round of 4.

00:31:56
The deciding factor if I go up or down might be how do you

00:31:59
think of Chambers and Proctor and Alvarez were handled like

00:32:04
Chambers is the woman. Yeah, kind of mid level manager.

00:32:07
Proctor's the top dog aiming to be even higher top dog taking

00:32:11
over CIA. We kind of learned in the very

00:32:13
end that he's actually a very self absorbed kind of power

00:32:18
hungry asshole. So that's like a little, that's

00:32:21
a little one of those also. Oh, got you for the next book.

00:32:24
And then all along, Alvarez is like the good guy trying to

00:32:28
figure things out, but we're not sure if he was the good guy in

00:32:31
the beginning. But ultimately we we come to

00:32:33
learn he's actually trying to get on the heels of this cabal.

00:32:37
Yeah, I I guess those 3 for me are the difference between A4

00:32:41
going up or A4 going down. Now, now that now that you bring

00:32:45
those in for sure Proctor, I don't, I don't.

00:32:48
I don't fully trust Proctor. Oh no, you can't.

00:32:51
Completely Alvarez. I liked like I thought like, you

00:32:55
know, but could you have cut him out the story?

00:32:58
You could have and it didn't make a difference.

00:33:01
He could have been gone completely and it might have

00:33:02
made it a better both. That's a problem.

00:33:05
It it is a problem? Yeah, no, you're right.

00:33:08
It's a four. It's 4, Santa 4.

00:33:11
It's four could be flirting with a 3 1/2, but all.

00:33:16
Right, Three and a. You want a three and a.

00:33:18
Half. Yeah, give me a 3 1/2.

00:33:19
Yeah, all. Right.

00:33:20
What about bad guys? Bad guys.

00:33:21
I'll go, I'll go. Same.

00:33:23
I'll go. No, no, I got to go.

00:33:25
Three. Yeah, I I'm not read read.

00:33:29
I didn't like it all. The thing is, I liked Ferguson

00:33:31
and Sykes a little more than you, but I I can't go any

00:33:34
higher, so 3. Yeah, like, it's, I like the

00:33:39
concept of Reed. Like, I like this idea of this

00:33:42
ultimate assassin. But then in the end, like, you

00:33:45
know, he was kind of like a roller coaster with Reed.

00:33:47
I I was enjoying like while he was taking out these other

00:33:49
people, you know, didn't like the fact that he, you know,

00:33:53
fucked up and and and and let him live like Victor live with

00:33:56
this, like, you know, stupid plot.

00:33:59
But then like coming back with the car chase and and the action

00:34:01
see his death, the band like kind of saved that.

00:34:04
So sure, yeah, 3. It's a three yeah setting man,

00:34:12
we were doing some. Blow trotting.

00:34:14
We were doing some Brad Thorne style travelling heavy.

00:34:19
Did I like that? Yeah, it was OK.

00:34:21
I think the the original European stuff definitely felt

00:34:24
like, oh, we're doing something familiar almost in a comforting

00:34:28
way of like, oh, this series isn't going to be something

00:34:30
totally out there. A swing and a miss, you know,

00:34:33
miss the mark. No, it was like, OK, this is

00:34:35
like one of the classic spy thrillers I've read before.

00:34:39
We're going to Paris, across the border to Germany and

00:34:42
Switzerland. And I, I thought that part of it

00:34:45
was a lot of fun. Russia, I thought, was handled.

00:34:47
Well too. The way the building is

00:34:50
described Normov's like complex and how he gets into it.

00:34:53
And then not to mention the bar fight dude when he when he asked

00:34:58
for Normov at the bar and these two like thugs corner him and he

00:35:02
puts a knife through one of their ears in the bar and then

00:35:06
wants to light him on fire pouring vodka on him like and

00:35:09
this dude's ear is pinned to the bar.

00:35:11
Lights the vodka like. Holds him down there until like

00:35:14
he. Yeah.

00:35:15
Wild. I thought that was fun and it

00:35:17
felt very Russian, a lot of that, so good, not great.

00:35:25
Tanzania then was also good, not great.

00:35:29
But if you know what, here's what I think he gets credit for.

00:35:32
I felt the shift. We were no longer in Europe, we

00:35:34
were no longer in Russia. Tanzania felt like Tanzania at

00:35:38
one point. We went through the markets of

00:35:39
the car chase, went through a marketplace and I felt that.

00:35:43
So there was a market shift that made me feel like a cold Siberia

00:35:48
down to tropical East Africa. So I, I think that that's some

00:35:53
kudos right there. I I'm going to go 4.

00:35:56
Yeah, no, I was going to say the same thing.

00:35:57
I think like the I, I felt like I was in the Europe's over and

00:36:03
I, you know, felt transported to Russia and then it ultimately

00:36:05
felt and and, you know, even when we were back, like

00:36:08
stateside, like I, I felt that tonal shift.

00:36:10
So yeah, it's it's a four. Yeah.

00:36:18
Covers. I haven't seen any other

00:36:20
alternate colors but I covers. But I do know the British

00:36:25
publication calls this the hunter, not even the killer.

00:36:28
So I'm I'm assuming they're also going to have their different

00:36:30
cover because we know how the Brits do covers.

00:36:35
All right, let's let me pull this up on Goodreads, because

00:36:39
you're missing. Let's do some Goodreads show all

00:36:42
48 editions. OK, I'm definitely seeing 2 main

00:36:44
editions with two very different color schemes.

00:36:49
Oh, and then they even have a Cover C.

00:36:51
All right, it's going to be interesting.

00:36:53
This is feeling like Mitch rap with an AAB and a Cover C.

00:37:03
Which one did you have by the way?

00:37:05
Well, I guess we both did the audio book.

00:37:07
It had the red one. Yeah.

00:37:11
Might have even had a different red one than this.

00:37:14
Yeah, we had like the audible audio version with the guy

00:37:19
looking through a right a skull. Looking down the site, Yep all.

00:37:24
Right. I see.

00:37:25
I see a lot of different ones. OK.

00:37:27
Let's go with the blue. We'll call the blue one.

00:37:31
I'm guessing I don't know which one's English, which one's

00:37:33
American. We'll go the blue one, the red

00:37:36
one. You know which one Cover C is

00:37:38
right? That that German one.

00:37:42
The guy running in the fields. Exactly.

00:37:44
Running in the fields. It's a typical cover C for our

00:37:47
old Mitch rap pod listeners among us.

00:37:50
You know, I really like the one that's like, I'm seeing it most

00:37:53
often. It's the, you know, floor of the

00:37:55
CIA with the target. I like that one, Tom.

00:38:00
Probably the best one. Henschelwood is that?

00:38:02
Is that like his full name? I thought it was Tom Wood.

00:38:05
Where do you see that? Says The Killer by Tom

00:38:09
Henschelwood. Oh I'm not saying that

00:38:12
interesting, maybe it is. That's definitely the best 1

00:38:18
though, and that's similar to the audible 1.

00:38:20
So I think this plus the audio one are in in the same vein with

00:38:24
the crosshairs running across the seal.

00:38:28
I mean, they're in Paris like a little bit like the fact that

00:38:31
like the other one has Paris, the descend, the guy's like

00:38:35
lower face. It's all right.

00:38:39
A bit of a face problem, or dare I say it, a jaw problem.

00:38:42
Excuse me? A chiseled jaw.

00:38:43
Chiseled jaw problem. Oh, code name Tesseract.

00:38:49
That's another. Tesseract.

00:38:51
Yep, Yep. I'm.

00:38:55
I can only give credit to that. It has Paris because that played

00:38:58
a really important role in the opening scene.

00:39:02
I I don't like how the blue cover, blue and yellow is laid

00:39:05
out. The face at the top, Paris on

00:39:06
the bottom. It's got to be the British one.

00:39:09
It has to be. It's so bad.

00:39:11
There's this interesting one where it's just a feather with

00:39:14
blood. I'm seeing the feather one.

00:39:15
Oh yeah, maybe that's like what, D?

00:39:18
What's the feather? I don't know the significance of

00:39:21
the feather and the feathers on ice, so maybe something in

00:39:24
Russia? Bloody feather.

00:39:27
They set him up, he'll make them pay a Victor, A Victor novel.

00:39:31
I like that. I like that they call it like a

00:39:32
Victor novel. No, I like the that it's known

00:39:35
as the Victor the Assassin series.

00:39:37
I think that's, that's a pretty cool tag line.

00:39:40
Victor the Assassin. Yeah, the feather one I think is

00:39:43
cool, very artsy. It actually could be a really

00:39:46
good cover to sell in a bookstore.

00:39:48
But we just don't get it. I.

00:39:50
Really don't get it. Pagala, Palga.

00:39:53
Morev, that's like a It's like a guy in the rain about to execute

00:39:59
somebody. A bald guy.

00:40:03
You see that one? No, let me keep looking.

00:40:06
But cover. See the guy just running through

00:40:09
a field of rain is is ridiculous.

00:40:11
It's utterly ridiculous. Like it's a zero.

00:40:14
I'm I award you no points and May God have mercy on your soul.

00:40:21
Yeah. I don't know if I want to go

00:40:22
down this rabbit hole. Where do we end up with this?

00:40:26
It's a little much. It's a little much.

00:40:27
I think it's a three, you know, it's a 3.

00:40:29
It's a solid like the, the main cover with, excuse me, the

00:40:34
audible or the other, you know, hardback paperback that has the

00:40:38
red scheme with the CIA cross crosshairs.

00:40:41
That one's cool. So I I you throw in the mix with

00:40:45
some bad ones, I think it's a solid 3.

00:40:47
Yeah, I mean, that is a good cover.

00:40:49
And the rest are so atrocious. I got to go 2 1/2.

00:40:52
Let me steal back that other half a point.

00:40:55
Oh, OK, still the other point. OK, all right.

00:41:01
Who's your free space? Oh man, couple of ways you can

00:41:07
go. It's going to sound a little

00:41:12
cheap, but my free space is kind of what's not addressed, which

00:41:16
is I don't know if I would have been interested in the series if

00:41:21
I had gotten more back story. I'm Victor.

00:41:23
If I already knew who he was, where he came from.

00:41:25
I I probably. Wouldn't like the entry.

00:41:27
Yeah, exactly. What jobs he's taking, what jobs

00:41:29
the broker has given him. So I his relationship with

00:41:32
Normov went out when he was encountering him, I was like,

00:41:34
yeah, was this dude going to massacre him?

00:41:36
And then the hell, you know that typical like movie scene where

00:41:39
the 2 two people meet, stare each other down and then all of

00:41:42
a sudden break out into a big grin and a bear hug?

00:41:45
I almost felt that way with him and Normov.

00:41:47
So all those little Nuggets I'm I'm curious about.

00:41:50
So I would say the shout is Tom Wood leaving us enough teasers,

00:41:54
getting me really interested in knowing who this character is,

00:41:58
what his life's been about. Yeah, initially I was going to

00:42:02
say like, like my my favorite scene is, is probably that

00:42:05
normal of scene where they're meeting and like you, you don't

00:42:07
quite know what's going to happen.

00:42:10
Like that, that that one has like the most.

00:42:12
Who was this guy? Obviously he knows him.

00:42:14
Is it his friend ultimately find out that he turns on him?

00:42:19
If I had to then go back to like other characters that sticked

00:42:23
out to me, really it's the broker, like, you know, and

00:42:26
having that bold choice of of killing her off after doing a

00:42:30
lot of work to set her up like is kind of crazy.

00:42:34
I I thought for sure she's like, she's a character to come, you

00:42:37
know, whether or not he, you know, begins to engage in a, a

00:42:40
relationship with her, maybe not Bold, bold, bold choice.

00:42:45
We'll have to see. Like, you know, is that, like

00:42:48
you said, is that a driving passion for him?

00:42:50
Is that, you know, a source of vengeance and how he's going to

00:42:54
act moving forward? You know, we'll have to see so.

00:42:58
Yeah, completely agree. Completely agree.

00:43:04
Well, Adam, we did that one for you, had a great time, was well

00:43:06
worth it. I don't know when we'll schedule

00:43:08
Book 2, but something I'd be willing to come back to after us

00:43:12
saying in 2025 we started too many new debut series and this

00:43:15
year we wouldn't do that. I'm glad it was this one that we

00:43:18
gave a try. Yeah, for sure.

00:43:20
For you, Adam. We do it for you.

00:43:21
For you. All right, So what do you got?

00:43:25
What does this end up with? I have a 38 higher than I

00:43:32
thought it was going to be. Do you have a 37?

00:43:35
Can you check the math for me, Mr. Doctor Chris?

00:43:39
Half higher than you One. No one Lower than you 2.

00:43:44
Lower than you? My 36 or 37?

00:43:47
You're 37. Oh, and then nine, you sure

00:43:50
about that? OK, 37 and 38, that's a little

00:43:54
higher than I thought it would be.

00:43:56
And I think we we found some of the positives so satisfactory,

00:44:02
perfectly average. Yeah, I think I was expecting it

00:44:07
to be like right around that 35, you know, like the 3435 range.

00:44:10
So, you know, found found a couple more bonuses in there.

00:44:14
Yeah, considering we're coming off a dead ringer, which we also

00:44:16
gave, you know, mid 30 scores to, yet at the same time I've

00:44:20
been recommending it to people. Yeah, sure.

00:44:22
I was really proud and happy. To I would recommend this book

00:44:24
to people too. Yeah, I'd recommend this one

00:44:26
too. Yeah, I think these two are

00:44:28
great examples of books in the mid 30s that aren't perfect,

00:44:32
that are not going to be instant classics, that won't be the most

00:44:34
memorable, but damn, they are worth your read.

00:44:37
They're worth the 20 bucks or whatever for sure.

00:44:41
Yeah, 100% agree. All right, Mike, what are we

00:44:46
covering next time? Well, you said in the beginning

00:44:49
Cold 0 is next on our to be read list.

00:44:51
So the Brad Thor, Ward, Larson team up.

00:44:55
Always fun to talk to both of those guys.

00:44:57
Been a while since we talked to Ward and another trend for 2026

00:45:02
on the Co authorship game. We did Andrews and Wilson.

00:45:06
We talked about Jack Carr and MP Woodward and their book The

00:45:09
Fourth Option coming up. So it's just the year of

00:45:12
co-authored books. So we get yet another duo little

00:45:16
tag team to interview and hear about how the process went.

00:45:20
And this one's going to be turned into a Series, A movie.

00:45:24
This is another one that they're talking film and we know Brad's

00:45:28
also doing. Isn't he also doing a Scott

00:45:30
Harvath though? I thought that was in the works,

00:45:32
yeah. Yeah, I thought that was in the

00:45:34
work. And then they come out and say

00:45:35
this one's going to be a film. I I don't know, I think that's

00:45:40
something I'm still wondering about.

00:45:41
So. All right, well.

00:45:44
We'll see. You'll hear our interview with

00:45:46
them and then you'll hear our our breakdown of the book once.

00:45:50
So go out, pre-order that. Make sure you get it.

00:45:54
In the meantime, let's thank our patrons.

00:45:57
Got to thank our deputy director, Sherry F and Brad E,

00:46:01
our special agents, Adam who we we read this book for Mike

00:46:06
Bandarrell, George, Matt, Dawn and Chris.

00:46:09
You can subscribe, rate and review to all three seasons of

00:46:12
No limits. Please check us out on

00:46:15
thrillerpod.com, Twitter and Instagram at Thriller podcast.

00:46:18
Go subscribe to us on YouTube. You could watch us.

00:46:21
I don't know why you want to watch 2 ball guys, but

00:46:23
apparently there's there's subtraction there.

00:46:25
So go check that out. That's what the people come for.

00:46:27
That's what the people come for the.

00:46:29
Ball guys and the limericks. Oh, let's hear it.

00:46:32
Let's hear Mike. Before you sign us off, let me

00:46:35
hit you with this one. Victor, the assassin that is.

00:46:39
His trade in shadows and aliases carefully played with a shot

00:46:44
clean and fast, targets vanished, outclassed.

00:46:48
A debut book, his skills on full display.

00:46:51
Boom baby, that's a good one. Thank you, Sir.

00:46:55
Solid. I should say that one is solid.

00:46:58
Perfectly average. Perfectly average.

00:47:01
Like our airline for late 30s. Fun times, fun times.

00:47:10
All right, you want to play us off?

00:47:14
Well, just like always, let Victor.

00:47:17
Be Victor.