Tom Wood

A Little About Tom

Tom Wood was born and bred in Edinburgh, where he spent almost four-decades in the police and was one of Scotland’s most senior and experienced operational police officers.

He has an extraordinary career spanning from ‘bobby on the beat’ in Stockbridge to senior ranking posts in the police. 
 

Much of Tom’s career was spent in CID and investigating some of the country’s most serious crimes.  And now, he’s a respected authority on criminal matters, a columnist in The Scotsman and an author of true crime.

And when he’s not writing, Tom is a keen motorcyclist and sailor but most enjoys the challenges presented by his growing brood of grandchildren!   

Tom's Most Recent True Crime Book 'Ruxton - The First Modern Murder'

Out This September!

Best selling Scottish crime writer Val McDermid describes Ruxton as: "A revelatory account…grips like a thriller."  This famous murder case, was the story, according to Tom, that "had to be written!"  

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In writing Ruxton - The First Modern Murder, Tom draws upon his huge wealth of over 40 years’ experience in the police and conducting cold case reviews.  It’s the only book currently on the market, which tells the incredible inside story of one of the most complex murder investigations (taking place in 1935 in Lancaster), that the world had ever seen and the ground-breaking work of Scottish forensic scientists who developed new techniques to solve the case and shaped the future of scientific criminal investigation, worldwide. 

Many elements of the book are like a cold case review - where you take a step back and tell the story whilst also making observations and interpretations based on the behavioural characteristics of the crime type. 

Tom gained access to previously unseen documents, some of which hadn’t been looked at for over 80 years.  He felt a real passion to tell this great, gripping, true life murder story.  And felt a sense of duty to convey the ‘behind the scenes’ story and bring some of these forgotten Scottish heroes in the fields of forensics, anatomy and policing into the limelight because those that worked on this ground-breaking case were amazingly talented, trail blazers of their time, who advanced the way criminal investigations were handled forever and these people deserved deeper recognition! 

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