"I have never been too fond of traditional heroes. Too much chin and too little room for error. The hero knows what to say in a tight spot and never loses a tooth or sustains facial damage except maybe a dainty scar on the cheek. I could never be a hero, especially one of the Spandex variety. I could never be a villain either as it requires a single mindedness that would be exhausting but I do find villains more interesting to write about.
The villain in my latest book WARP: The Reluctant Assassin is a nasty piece of work. Albert Garrick is a Victorian magician turned assassin who prowls the shadows of London town doing his grisly work. Garrick is a singular killer who uses all the tricks of his erstwhile trade to break and enter, then disappear in a puff of smoke. He is also an egomaniac who stole a baby boy just so he would have someone to listen to stories of his exploits. Garrick kills without remorse and when the boy he has kidnapped to be his audience runs away, he is determined to get that boy back, dead or alive. Alive would be his preference, but only just."
1. Ernst Stavro Blofeld – Thunderball
James Bond's nemesis in three of Ian Fleming's books and several movie adaptations. We first encounter Blofeld in the novel Thunderball where he masterminds the theft of two nuclear bombs and uses them to blackmail the world's governments. What impressed me about Blofeld with his meticulous and dispassionate organisation of the plan. Every conceivable obstacle is planned for and, indeed, Bond only recovers the bombs by an almost incredible stroke of good fortune.
2. Captain Hook - Peter Pan
My first super villain. Urbane, sophisticated, egotistical and totally ruthless. There is no way - NO WAY- Peter Pan could have taken the Hook. I suppose it had to end this way but I was a little disappointed.
3. Hawk Dove - Flight of the Doves
Not a well known villain but he is the scariest bad guy from my childhood. A master of disguise out to murder his niece and nephew for their inheritance. Imagine the terror of being stalked by an uncle who could be anyone anywhere. Scary stuff.
4. Count Dracula - Dracula
Forget the movie adaptations - for real scares go to the source material. There is nothing glamorous about Bram Stoker's original. This guy crawls down castle walls and talks to wolves. A brilliant creation who is just as scary today as he was a century ago.
5. The Kurgan - Highlander
The Kurgan is the perfect warrior and can only be killed by a slight Scotsman with a French accent. I like the Kurgan because he is uncomplicated. Have sword - will kill. This is a mantra which has kept him alive for a thousand years. In the end there could be only one - and it wasn't the Kurgan. He was beheaded by a little French guy with a Scottish accent. Not fair.
6. Agatha Trunchbull - Matilda
Evil personified. Ms Trunchbull terrorised children in her school and by extension everywhere. She picked on the misfits and bullied the teachers and she turned out to be sort of a murderer. Not since the Childcatcher has there been such a blatant nastiness. Roald Dahl never shied away from controversy.
7. Professor Moriarty - Sherlock Holmes
Moriarty, the smartest villain there has ever been. A thousand genius villains have been spawned in his image. It was inevitable that Sherlock's equal would eventually show himself and Moriarty was up to the task. Sherlock and Moriarty sparred for a long time before that tragic meeting at the Reichenbach Falls. And, for the record, the guy playing Moriarty in the last series of Sherlock was totes amazeballs, as the youngsters might say. Word.
8. John Silver - Treasure Island
The silver-tongued devil who won Jim's affections before he betrayed him. The pirate who made peg-legs fashionable. This is such a famous villain that he had kids all over the world screwing up their faces and growling "arrrr, Jim lad". A beautifully written skinful of nastiness.
9. Napoleon - Animal Farm
Napoleon is the kind of villain that makes us shout at the page, "Don't trust him, he is evil!" When he takes the pups from the farm dogs and trains them privately, we know we have a first class fascist pig on our hands. The book was written by Orwell as a scathing commentary on Stalin's Russia.
10. The Joker - Batman
A brilliantly creepy character who has managed to grow over time from a crime clown to a layered psychopath. Many other comic book bad guys such as Mr MindI (a cartoon worm) and Gorilla Grodd the telepathic ape did not survive the evolution of the graphic novel, but the Joker just keeps getting better with Heath Ledger's chilling version a definite high point.
Steerpike - Gormenghast
A Machiavellian schemer and the protagonist of the Gormengast series. A borderline genuinely ruthless character who is prepared to do whatever is necessary to reach his end. Evil to the very end, his last words to Titus are: "You were lucky".
