Victor the Assassin Books in Order: How to read Tom Wood’s Series?

Coming from British author Tom Wood, Victor the Assassin is an explosive thriller series about–as you may have guessed–a lethal assassin called Victor. Victor is a freelancer, a professional, a killer–the best there is. He’s ice-cold, methodical, and deadly. He lives alone. He operates alone. No one knows his background or even his name. For him, business is a straight transaction. He’s given a job; he takes out the target; he gets paid.

How to read the Victor the Assassin Series in Order?

Every entry in the Victor the Assassin book series works as a standalone story, but the lives of the different characters evolve from one novel to the other.

1. The Hunter (aka The Killer) – Victor is in Paris to perform a standard kill and collect for an anonymous client. The contract is simple, routine, and he completes it with trademark efficiency only to find himself in the middle of an ambush and fighting for his life. Faced with powerful and determined enemies, and caught in the crossfire of an international conspiracy unfolding across four continents, Victor is forced to go on the run across a winter-ravaged Europe. Pursued by the authorities, hired assassins, and intelligence agencies from both sides of the Atlantic, he discovers that no place is safe for him anymore and there is no one he can trust.
2. Bad Luck in Berlin (short story) – Victor has been out of the game for six months – but he’s as deadly as ever. He’s in Berlin, preparing for his first assignment as a CIA contractor: taking out the scout of a notorious crime lord. No one is supposed to die – not yet – but as Victor tracks his target, he realises he’s not the only one interested in the scout . . . and if Victor is going to do his job, he has to stop someone else doing theirs.
3. The Enemy – Victor is locked in an uneasy alliance with the CIA. And he has a list: Three names, three victims. Worst of all, Victor is given just two days to take down his targets, forcing him to compromise his usual extreme care. With each name Victor crosses off his list, the game grows far more complex – and far more lethal. A conspiracy begins to unwind and suddenly this perfect assassin becomes the perfect target.
4. Gone by Dawn (short story) – Bloodied and broken, Victor knows retribution at the hands of his enemies is right behind him. Yet when a young woman shows him kindness he’s not used to in a small town on the border, he delays his escape so he can return the favour.
5. The Game – In sweltering Algiers, Victor executes a fellow assassin. But when the CIA comes calling, Victor must pose as his victim to identify the dead man’s next mark–a mission that takes him across Europe to the bloody streets of Rome. Working alongside a group of vicious mercenaries, Victor faces an impossible choice: to do what’s right or to sacrifice the only thing he cares about: his life.

6. No Tomorrow (aka Better Off Dead) – When Victor is called to meet with an old friend who ultimately betrayed him, what he thought was an ambush is in fact a plea for help. As a Russian gangster, Norimov is accustomed to death threats, but now an unknown enemy wants more than his life. They intend to kill everyone he cares about, including his missing daughter Gisele. This time, Victor’s job is not to kill but to protect. Unfortunately, locating Gisele is his first mistake-because someone is watching his every move.
7. The Darkest Day – While carrying out a hit on a terrorist financier, Victor finds himself the target of an assassin who proves to be just as deadly as he is. Never one to let such a thing go, Victor sets about hunting down his attacker and those who sent her. She is Raven-a freelance assassin with a dark past and hidden agenda. If Victor wants to stay alive he must find out who Raven really is and what she is truly after.
8. A Time To Die – Now that professional assassin Victor is indentured to British Intelligence, he is tasked with eliminating the worst of the worst. One such man is Milan Rados, a former Serbian paramilitary commander wanted for war crimes and now head of an organized criminal network in Belgrade. He has escaped justice once already, so it’s Victor’s job to take the justice to him.

9. The Final Hour – Antonio Alvarez, a high-ranking US intelligence official, is determined to clean house and find the legendary killer who slipped away from him during an operation in Paris. There’s only one person Victor can turn to for help: a lethal female assassin whose life he once saved. And now Victor wants her to return the favor-by killing him…
10. Kill For Me – Victor is the killer who always delivers…for the right price. And Heloise Salvatierra, patron of Guatemala’s largest cartel, is ready and willing to pay him just that to eliminate the competition: her sister. Heloise has been battling Maria for control of the cartel in an endless and bloody war. Now Victor decides who survives. An easy job if it weren’t for the sudden target on his back.
11. A Quiet Man – Victor is hiding out in a small motel in Canada after a job across the border. A few days laying low and he’ll be gone and leave no trace behind. He doesn’t count on getting to know a mother and her boy who reminds him of his own troubled childhood. When both vanish, only Victor seems to notice. Once he starts looking for them, he finds himself at odds with the criminals who own the town. They want him gone. Only Victor’s going nowhere until he discovers the truth and to them, he’s just a quiet man asking the wrong questions.

12. Traitor – When Victor is arrested for a murder that, for once, he didn’t commit, escape must surely be inevitable for a hitman of his ferocity. Yet someone wants Victor put away, and he finds himself behind bars, incarcerated by police who have no idea of the monster they are dealing with and have, apparently, tamed. Quickly, however, his fellow prisoners realize that he’s not trapped in there with them: they are in a cage, with the most dangerous of enemies. And Victor has a traitor to find.
13. Blood Debt – To make amends for past mistakes, the enigmatic assassin known only as Victor is now in servitude to the world’s most dangerous criminal enterprise, the Russian Mafia. Although a hired gun without loyalties, Victor never picks a fight he cannot win so he intends to pay off his debt, however long it takes. 

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