John Locke
Created by Jack Barnao (Ted Wood)

Former SAS counter-terrorism expert (he served in Belfast, Ulster, Rome and London, and was involved in the storming of the Iranian embassy), JOHN LOCKE grew bored with army life and returned home to Toronto to set himself up in business for himself. His business cards read "John Locke, Physical Assurance" and that's what he provides, a high-priced bodyguard for people "too rich or too busy to look after themselves."

But what he really does is act like a private eye, more than anything else. A private eye at war, maybe, putting a little too much faith in his lovingly-described Walther PP Super 9mm, perhaps, but a P.I. nonetheless.

Locke grew up a spoiled rich kid in Toronto, but somewhere along the line he straightened himself out. He decided he wanted to join the army, but he didn't feel like joining the Canadian army, where he figured he'd end up putting on a uniform and just sitting on his duff in Saskatchewan, developing cirrhosis. He wanted action -- so he went off to Britain and joined their army.

But eventually he tired of the army life, and decided to pursue a life of "travel, adventure and good living." Military life lacked the latter.He seems to be doing okay in this "Physical Assurance" racket, making enough dough to keep himself in Blue Jays tickets and crossword puzzle books, which he seems to do by the score.

He appeared in two pulpy, action-oriented books in the eighties written by Jack Barnao, a pen name for writer Ted Wood, who writes the Reid Bennett mysteries about one-man police force in northern Ontario. Fun, in a boys' adventure sort of way, full of guns and fistfights.

NOVELS

• HammerLocke (1986)...Buy this book...Kindle it!
• LockeStep (1987)...Kindle it!
• TimeLocke (1991)...Buy this book

Report respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.