Tommy Tomm

Spoiler-light through chapter two. Tommy's death is the inciting event of the case Harry takes; the killer's identity is below the spoiler line.

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In a sentence

One of Gentleman Johnny Marcone's enforcers — the first body Harry sees in the book, killed in a Madison Hotel suite by a sorcerous working that tore his heart out of his chest, and the murder that opens both the police case and the entire series.

Who he is in the story

Tommy is dead before the book starts. He is found in a high-floor suite at the Madison Hotel in bed with Jennifer Stanton, his heart removed mid-act by a working that left no physical evidence consistent with conventional violence. The crime scene that opens chapter two is his. The case that consumes the rest of the book is his. He is the dominant absence in the first half of the novel, and he is, indirectly, the reason Marcone shows up in person to ask Harry to leave the investigation alone.

The character is a slot the plot needs to fill. The book does not pretend otherwise — Tommy is named and described enough to ground the scene and is otherwise given respectful distance. What matters about him is who he worked for (Marcone), what he was doing when he died (a working that used his and Jennifer's intimacy as the spell's battery), and what his death triggers (Murphy calling Harry, Marcone offering Harry money, Bianca opening her door to Harry, Morgan deciding Harry is finally the one who did it).

What he's like

Off-page. The book gives you the body, not the man. What the procedural notes and Marcone's behavior at the scene of the case let you infer: he was a long-time enforcer for Marcone's operation, trusted enough to be on Marcone's personal payroll, and worth flying Marcone's polite-and-lethal mode to deal with. That is the dignified amount the novel commits to.

What he wanted

Whatever an enforcer for Chicago organized crime wants, in the small portion of his life that was his rather than the work. The book does not speculate. The scene at the Madison shows you what kind of company he kept on his nights off and lets you draw your own line.

What he feared / hid

Whatever he carried as Marcone's enforcer. The book is, again, deliberate about not speculating. The killer used his intimacy with Jennifer Stanton as the spell's channel, which the procedural lets you read as targeted — he was chosen, not random. Why he was chosen is below the spoiler line.

Key relationships

• Gentleman Johnny Marcone — employer. The loss is professional and possibly personal; Marcone's response is to lock down the investigation, which the book lets you read either way.
• Jennifer Stanton — client, lover, the second body in the room. Their relationship was real enough to be the channel the killer used. The book treats that with restraint.
• Karrin Murphy — the cop who walked the scene. She calls Harry because the manner of death has no procedural answer.

What he looks like

The novel does not paint Tommy's face. The Page Posse art for this page therefore renders him as a memorial Polaroid on a hotel-suite desk — a respectful in-memoriam framing rather than a corpse photograph. The implied man in the photo: a heavy-set mob-enforcer build in his late thirties, broad-shouldered, slicked-back dark hair, a neat goatee, blunt features, a small scar bisecting the right eyebrow, tough watchful eyes. In the framed photo he wears a charcoal pinstripe suit, white shirt, deep maroon silk tie, a heavy gold ring on the right pinky. The composite is a reasonable inference from his role and from the period, not from a description on the page.

For your book club

• Tommy is a structural slot — the first body that the plot needs. Storm Front does the slot well by spending almost no time on him personally. What does the restraint cost the book? What does it gain?
• The killing uses sex magic with willing partners. Tommy and Jennifer were not the willing partners; the Beckitts were. The mechanism of the spell is grim and very specific. What does Butcher gain from making the mechanism that explicit?
• Two unrelated victims die together in the opening scene of the book. The reader processes them as a couple. What does that grouping do to how you read the case?

Aliases

The following names and references in the book all point to this character. Use any of these as link anchors back to this page.

• Tommy Tomm (canonical — the most common form)
• Tommy
• Tomm