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TOM LOCKE

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Full Name: Tom Locke
Nationality: American
Organization: Apollo Outcomes
Occupation Other - Mercenary

Creator: Sean McFate
Time Span: 2016 - 2020

ABOUT THE SERIES

Tom Locke is a mercenary.

Some might elevate his career to being a security consultant but it is unlikely Locke would do so. He is comfortable with what he does and does not play games with it.

When we first meet him, he works for what seems to be a major player in this line of work, Apollo Outcomes. He has, according to his own words, "been the Apollo man in Africa for more than a decade: raising small armies for U.S. interests; preventing a genocide in Burundi with twelve competent soldiers; defeating a warlord in Liberia without firing a shot; 'shaping the environment' in Sudan to make way for American foreign policy. Standard stuff." The mission he is completing at the beginning of the first recorded adventure was different for him, however, with the objective being "to seize, protect, and operate major oil fields, on foreign soil, for an American oil company, in the middle of a civil war."

Locke does not fit into the stereotype of a mercenary, though. For one thing, he is not uncomfortable or ill at ease in a suit. He actually owns several of them and they fit well. For another, he can deal with boardroom meetings as easily as he can dark alley rendezvouses or campfire powwows; he knows that there is a potential for bloodshed at any time so tread lightly, don't lose your cool, and always watch your back. And then there is the love of opera.

His background does go along with any "standard" merc career path, if a bit more prestigious. He had served for several years in the U.S. Special Forces but chosen to get out when his enlistment ended and gone to college. He had been a graduate student when first approached by a recruiter who implied he worked for the State Department but really was with the CIA. He had not decided yet when the planes hit the Towers. Some time later he switched to the private sector where his work was the same, just the name on the pay stub was different.

Some mercenaries do the work because they have nothing else they can do. Locke is different in that he loves the the excitement and needs the challenge. He is smart and experience enough to know that "sometimes 'best man for the job' just meant the least informed".

BOOKS

Number of Books:3
First Appearance:2016
Last Appearance:2020

1 Shadow War Shadow War
Written by Sean McFate
Copyright: 2016

Tom Locke is used to fighting, not being an investigator, but that is the assignment he has - find out who took a Russian oligarch's family, discover where they are being held, and come up with a way to get them free. For a man used to the deserts of North Africa, Ukraine is a totally different environment.
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2 Deep Black Deep Black
Written by Sean McFate
Copyright: 2017

The job, now that Tom Locke was no longer working for Apollo Outcomes, seemed difficult but easy to understand - find a Saudi prince who is deep inside territory controlled by ISIL and get him out. What he didn't know was the man being sought was fulfilling a secret agreement with Pakistan and that the man's father was possibly involved in an overthrow of the Saudi kingdom.
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3 High Treason High Treason
Written by Sean McFate
Copyright: 2020

When the Vice President's motorcade his attacked on the streets of D.C., everyone is thinking ISIS - except FBI agent Jennifer Lin. And Tom Locke but he is on the other side of the world.
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MY COMMENTS

I include Tom Locke in this spy series compendium because the adventures we have of him are not the standard mercenary/soldier action but more a one-man operation and it is not military so much as 'something else'. Like many in the cloak and dagger business, Locke gets told just enough to go do the job but not enough to have much of a clue when things go south and it would seem that for reasons outside his control, things go wrong a lot.

I hope the author decides there is another adventure or two of Tom Locke inside him because the writing is easy and well done and the two plots so far have been interesting and varied.

GRADE

My Grade: B+

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