Hi Tom, thank's that you have taking the time to answer a few questions of Elements of Crime.

Please let us start with this, who is the Person Tom Wood?

Tom Wood doesn’t actually exist. Tom Hinshelwood does, however, but for a number of reasons the Hinshel part of my surname has been surgically removed to accommodate publishers in different countries. In fact, it was my German publisher who started the trend! However, I was published in hardback as Hinshelwood last year in the US, but I’ve since been changed to Wood in the US as I am everywhere else, except Poland. Confused? I am too. Name aside, I’m a 32-year-old English writer who was born in the area of England we call the Midlands (because it’s in the middle) and I now live in London. My first novel, Codename Tesseract, came out in March in Germany, and before I started writing full time I worked primarily as a video editor, but I’ve also worked in many other jobs. I’m also a huge boxing fan.

Previously you have written short stories, different styles and different genres. How did the contract killer "Victor"?

I created the character of Victor around ten years ago. I’ve also been someone who usually found the villains of film and literature more interesting than the heroes, and I wanted to write a story where the protagonist was more bad guy than good guy. Antiheroes have always existed in fiction, more often than not they are really just good guys who will occasionally be a little bad, but always for a good cause. I didn’t want Victor to be like that. I wanted him to be the other way around. I wanted him to be bad, and occasionally be a little good. I wanted readers to be shocked at times by what he does while at the same time still rooting for him.

Originally, I’d written Victor as a character in a short scene—the opening hotel shootout—and it was some years later that I set about trying to build a novel around him. I’d always thought this shootout would form the climax of a book, but I decided to start Codename Tesseract with the scene, instead of ending with it. I wanted to being the book with a bang, and I set out to write a very cinematic novel that was fast paced and exciting all the way through. I didn’t plan out the plot in advance, but I always knew what would happen at the end. I just didn’t know how to get from the opening scene to the final scene. As Codename Tesseract is primarily a chase novel the plot wrote itself for the most part. After the opening battle, Victor wants to know who sent those men after him, and so starts to track down his enemies, all the while they’re trying to track him down. But, as I went along, other ideas would come to me, and I would insert them into the main narrative. For several reasons it took a long time to be published, so it was some years ago now that I first completed the original draft. I think I was 26 or 27 at the time. The first version was a lot shorter than the published one, and the plot was greatly stripped down, but every time I worked on the book I added more and more to it.

When you started writing with the “The Killer” ( in German “Codename Tesseract”), the writing was still your hobby?

I used to love writing as a child, but when I was a teenager with computer games, girls and alcohol to distract me, I didn’t write as much. When I was a university student, though, I began to write more and more and haven’t stopped since. I’d done some commercial writing before I wrote the book, but not much, so yes, writing was still very much a hobby. However, when I did start writing Codename Tesseract my intention was to be published. I’d already tried to write a book, but didn’t have the will or ability to see it through and became quite disillusioned with writing for a while. But one day in my mid twenties decided I was actually going to write and finish a book. Thankfully, I did.

Your debut novel ”Codename Tesseract” hit like a bomb, It was, and is still very successful. But me interests, why “Tesseract “,it has a significant?

In the novel those hunting Victor don’t know his real name—no one does, so they’ve assigned him a codename: Tesseract. When Victor finds out this he’s told there is no significance to it, that it’s just a codename. However, I chose Tesseract as a codename for two reasons. Firstly, I wanted an evocative, memorable word, and Tesseract is particularly striking and hasn’t been used before in such a context, at least to my knowledge Secondly, it’s the name of the four-dimensional analog of a cube, and as Victor exists outside the traditional boundaries of what we expect in a three-dimensional hero, I thought this was very fitting.

“The Killer “ ( in German “Codename Tesseract”) is so exciting and explosive as a Hollywood blockbuster! After completion, did you feel it that this book is really great?

I really enjoyed writing the book, and I hoped other people would think it was good, but I didn’t know for sure. After a few rewrites I had a lot of confidence in the book and nearly everyone who I got to read it thought it was great. But I was aware I’d written a novel that was more like a film than a traditional piece of literature, and with a protagonist who was very much an antihero, so I knew it was unconventional. And when something is unconventional, sometimes people love that, other times they hate it. As expected, it doesn’t suit some people, but I’m happy to say that the overwhelming majority of readers have really taken to it.

Your second novel is finished and published in march 2012. What expected the reader in „ Zero Option „? Can you give us a small view?

I’m very excited about Zero Option. I had a great time writing it and I think that not only does it have the same kind of relentless pace and excitement that Codename Tesseract has, but it also has a richer, more intricate story. In Zero Option Victor is no longer a freelance assassin and is now employed exclusively by Procter at the CIA. Victor, the consummate loner, doesn’t like working for anyone, but he doesn’t have a lot of choice but to do as he’s told if he wants to keep his long list of enemies (CIA included) off his back. Victor has been hired to perform a series of assassinations targeting members of the illegal arms trade. The jobs should be simple enough, but nothing is as straightforward as it appears, and Victor quickly realise he’s being used a pawn in a deadly game where it’s going to take all of his wits and skill to survive.

Which authors / books have most influenced you?

I’m often compared to Lee Child, which I find interesting as I didn’t read a book of his until I’d already written the first draft of my novel. That said, since then I’ve devoured almost every Lee Child book and I think he’s an absolute master at creating mystery and reading his books has certainly taught me a thing or two about crafting suspense, so I think we can call him a late influence. When I was younger I used to read a series of fantasy novels by the author R. A . Salvatore, and his main character is an assassin named Artemis Entreri, who I happened to like far more than the hero. Entreri is not an antihero, but an out-and-out villain—he makes Victor look like a boy scout in comparison!—but I’ve no doubt that my fondness for Entreri guided me towards writing a novel about an assassin, albeit one set in the real world instead of a fantasy world.