Thomas Bladen is an agent with the U.K.'s Surveillance Support Unit.
Technically he is but his specialty is surveillance so if you normally saw Bladen out in the field on an operation, it would be him watching the bad guy. If you were the bad guy, smile nicely for the camera because Bladen is pretty good at his job and if you are the assignment, he has you covered.
That is on the positive side of the Bladen ledger. On the other side is the fact that his boss at the department is his ex-girl friend, Christine. Actually maybe closer to his boss's boss since his new immediate boss is the guy that she left Bladen for so that does make for an interesting situation at work.
Luckily for Bladen he will soon have a whole of worse things to concentrate on, like people trying to kill him, which he is against, and people trying to kill innocent people while he is watching which he is also against though not quite as much.
He also has a new girlfriend, well, sometimes, named Miranda but Bladen's work seems to be consistently putting her into harm's way so it might be interesting to ask her if she feels it all worth it. Interestingly, Miranda, who owns a bar in the East End of London called Caliban's, has a few secrets of her own. She is also the daughter of a couple who own a casino and who, according to a bio on them "have am ambiguous relationship with the tax office".
As the author describes him in an interview, Bladen is "not exactly a conscript but he falls into the job accidentally; he loves photography and he is offered the opportunity to get some weekend work and he is gradually reeled in. Over the series of books you find out why they particularly liked him".
Again according to the writer, he comes essentially from left field - "he's not ex-military, he's not ex-police. His father was a miner...he is very much a working class spy who finds himself working for the Establishment". "He has a chip on his shoulder the size of Nebraska."
Most telling about his make-up is the comment that Bladen is the sort of fellow that, if you were in trouble, he is the one you would call to help you get out of it - but you wouldn't want to learn too much about how he went about it.
Good Lines:
- Regarding Bladen, "He has five numbers stored in his phone and that's probably two more than he needs".