The Killer Elite

Mike Locken #1

by Robert Rostand

STICKER DAMAGE ON COVER. TANNING INSIDE COVERS DUE TO AGE. ACTUAL PAGES ARE CLEAN WITH NO WRITING OR MARKS.

Genres: Thriller, Espionage, Fiction, Action

212 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1973

About the author

Robert S. Hopkins was the author of twelve books – three non-fiction works and nine novels – under his own name and the pen-name, Robert Rostand.

Of his novels, three became feature-length movies, two from screenplays by Hopkins, both international coproductions, and filmed respectively in France and Hungary. In addition he authored original screenplays for Universal Studios and Warner Brothers. Plus written multiple-episodes for two U.S. television series filmed in Canada, RoboCop and F/​X.

Hopkins was born and grew up in a small blue-collar town south of Los Angeles. He graduated from UCLA, not in English but Geography, and earned a Master’s degree from the University of Oklahoma.

Prior to full-time writing he taught in Hawaii at both the Kamehameha Schools and the University of Hawaii, later worked in sales management with the international division of the McGraw-Hill publishing company in New York and South America; had a tour under contract to the Peace Corps assessing staff in the Caribbean and Micronesia, and spent two years in London spinning words in one fashion or another for a design and marketing group.

Being an American living and working in foreign cultures had a profound influence on his fiction and non-fiction. The nine novels are all set in foreign locales known first-hand, most often with an American protagonist caught up in the "spirit of place" as British poet Lawrence Durrell called it.

Reviews

[Checkman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mid-seventies action/espionage novel. Somewhat dated, but like so many novels from the seventies I own it because it is one of the things I remember from my childhood. My father had several shelves full of of spy/espionage novels. Fond memories.

However it's not really that bad. It was written before the genre was taken over by the likes of Tom Clancy and Dale Brown with their obsession for technical details and rah rah flag waving great American heroes. People are grey in this novel and the characters have to resolve problems with their own intelligence and a little luck. It's a post-Vietnam/Watergate espionage novel. Cynical and dark. Probably not on Newt Gingrich's reading list.

I liked it.

[Josh Hitch · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's an interesting read that keeps you guessing. Locken is working for a protection bureau of the US, while on a job, he is brutally wounded and crippled for life. Later, after he recovers some of his mobility, he is asked to come back to head another job. As an incentive, he is told that the man who wounded him will be part of the opposition.

Recommended, It's a quick read and keeps you interested. It has a lot of moving parts and does well in making everything make some kind of weird sense in the end.

[Sandrita · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a fast-paced novel, and a very good one, too; you will have a hard time pausing yourself from reading. Reading it felt like watching a movie. Details weren't exploited in beautiful poetic sentences, but the way Rostand writes explain the details needed to make you imagine what was happening in the book.

[Steve Minnick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good reading, but the characters are not as real as they should be

The pacing could improve and more time spent getting into the characters with some history (for the whys) thrown in would definitely help. As hard as I tried to be with them, I couldn’t be,
I was only watching them

[Bob Box · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read in 1975. Spy thriller.

[Esquire · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful book, fast moving and well written.

[Frank Allen · Rating 5 out of 5]

A rip roaring action adventure book. Loved every minute of it. Looking forward to VIPERS GAME, the next in the trilogy.

[Shadow · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Killer Elite by Robert Rostand is best known for being made into a 1975 film starring James Caan and Robert Duvall -- a decent movie that was very different from the novel (though it did feature one of the first appearances of ninjas in American media!).

This is another story from those cynical, paranoid 1970s, when, in the wake of the high-profile assassinations of the 1960s, Vietnam, Watergate, failed revolutions and revelations about the CIA's nasty antics around the world, every thriller seemed to involve shadowy government or corporate entities scheming to overthrow regimes, assassinate leaders and deceive humanity (sound familiar?). The works of Robert Ludlum, James Grady's Six Days of the Condor, and the film Parallax View are good examples of the genre; The Killer Elite adds an assassination storyline reminiscent of Frederick Forsyth's classic The Day of the Jackal.

The novel's protagonist, Mike Locken, is an operative for SYOPS--a secret American agency tasked with transporting and securing Soviet defectors and other VIPs who may be targets of enemy action. As the story begins, three international assassins have been identified entering England following an anonymous tip-off. Their target is a popular African leader named Nyoko living in exile in London, whom his homeland's strongman leader wants to eliminate to defeat a popular uprising. 

The premise of the novel is an intriguing one: what if a government used a "killer elite" of assassins to take care of problems instead of military forces? It was inspired by an actual proposal made by a member of the British House of commons, as related in the novel to Locken's boss:

Tell me, Collis, have you ever heard of John Lee? ... Member of Parliament here a few years back. Absolute terror on military spending. Made a brilliant speech in the Commons in sixty-nine with a radical proposal on how to cut the size of the British Army. Lee's idea was to turn it into a small elite of political assassins. ... His logic was that a small power like Britain couldn't hope to compete militarily with the superpowers. Lee thought in this day the political assassin was more fearsome than the Bomb, hence a better tool of diplomacy. His speech made quite a splash in the dailies.

The African strongman has decided to adopt this policy, employing mercenary assassins in place of a standing military to take care of problems like Nyoko. The other major plot element driving the narrative is the fact that Locken was nearly killed during his previous assignment, by an assassin who happens to be one of the three hunting Nyoko. So Locken has an opportunity for revenge, and his new assignment becomes very personal.

After this intriguing setup, the novel becomes a chase story, as Locken has to safely escort Nyoko and his daughter out of Britain while luring the hated assassin out so he can kill him. There are twists and turns as treacheries and deceptions are discovered, and a fairly dramatic final confrontation. But just as the story climaxes, Rostand decides to give us several pages of exposition explaining exactly how the plot twists and machinations led to this point, which I found jarring and not very good story-telling. I also found several of the characters improbable, like the old man Nyoko and his city girl daughter, who suddenly turn into fierce primal warriors in the Welsh bush.

According to his bio, author Robert Rostand (real name Robert Hopkins) spent considerable time working and living abroad, which brings a worldly sophistication to his writing that elevates this novel a notch or two above the typical thriller. But it doesn't reach the heights of other well-travelled authors like Forsyth, Trevanian or Adam Hall. The Killer Elite wasn't a great read, but it was interesting enough that I'll probably try the next installment of the Mike Locken series or other works by Rostand.

Get a copy of The Killer Elite here.

[Ron · Rating 3 out of 5]

Decent thriller revolving around revenge and goals.

[Rochelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

A quick read with a solid plot, but somewhat dated.