The Killer Elite by Robert Rostand

 

(pb; 1973)

From the back cover 

“The day of the assassins.

“There were three of them, the best in the business. All were in England now, three free-lance professional assassins hired by the same power, three specialists in sudden death closing in one the same target.

“Just one man stood between them and the success of their murderous mission. A man with past failure to atone for; a blood to settle. A man whose almost insane pride would prefer death to another defeat. A man named [Michael] Locken, with nothing left to lose and no one left to trust as the faced the killer elite.”

 

Review

Killer is a tautly written, effectively character sketched action novel with a lot of character-based twists, some of them likely familiar to genre-knowledgeable readers, but many of them still-effective and masterful. This is a great action-genre read, one worth seeking out.

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Two film versions resulted from this Rostand novel.

The PG-rated first version, The Killer Elite, was directed by Sam Peckinpah. It was released stateside on December 19, 1975. Killer‘s screenplay was penned by Marc Norman, Stirling Siliphant, and Robert Syd Hopkins.

James Caan played Mike Locken. Robert Duvall played George Hansen. Arthur Hill played Cap Collis. Bo Hopkins played Jerome Miller. Mako played Yuen Chung.

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The second version, Killer Elite, was released stateside on September 23, 2011. Gary McKendry directed it, from Matt Shering and Ranulph Fiennes’s screenplay.

Jason Statham played Danny [cinematic stand-in for Mike Locken]. Clive Owen played Spike. Robert DeNiro played Hunter. Adewale Akinnouye-Agbaje played Agent. Dominic Purcell played Davies.  

The Bourne Identity by Robert Ludlum

(pb; 1980: first book in Robert Ludlum's Jason Bourne trilogy) 

A wounded man, rescued from the sea, discovers that he is more than he thought, and finds himself hunted by various agencies and people, not the least of whom is Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, aka the Carlos the Jackal (loosely based on a real-life assassin). 

Identity is classic Ludlum: Bourne, like most of Ludlum's protagonists, is well-developed, as are all of the characters in this novel. These personalities further convolute an already complex, international-in-scope plot, resulting in some memorably slick action sequences amidst detailed settings. Bourne's initially-unwilling female companion, Marie St. Jacques, is a great foil to Bourne, and complements him. Hairpin, often surprising, twists highlight this novel, making this a delight to read. Followed by The Bourne Supremacy. 

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This novel has been filmed twice, first as a mini-series, later as a theatrical release. The television mini-series version, bearing the name of its source novel, aired on American television on May 8, 1988. Roger Young directed the mini-series, from a script by Carol Sobieski. 

Richard Chamberlain played Jason Bourne. Jaclyn Smith played Marie St. Jacques. Anthony Quayle played Gen. François Villiers. Donald Moffat played David Abbott. Yorgo Voyagis played Carlos. Peter Vaughn played Fritz Koenig. Denholm Elliott played Dr. Geoffrey Washburn. 

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The theatrical film was released stateside on June 14, 2002. Matt Damon played Jason Bourne. Franka Potente played Marie St. Jacques. Chris Cooper played Alexander Conklin. Clive Owen played The Professor. Brian Cox played Ward Abbott. Gabriel Mann played Danny Zorn. Walton Goggins played "Research Tech". Doug Liman directed the film, from a script by Tony Gilroy and W. Blake Herron (billed as William Blake Herron).

Derailed, by James Siegel

(hb; 2003)

From the inside flap:

“Every day Charles Schine rides the 8:43 to do the job he has done for over a decade in a New York advertising agency. With a wife and an ill child who depend on him, charles is not a man who likes changes or takes risks...until he is late for his regular train - and sits down across from the woman of his dreams.

“Her name is Lucinda. Like Charles, she is married. Like Charles, she takes the train every day to work in New York City. Her train is the 9:05, and tomorrow she will be on it again – and so will Charles. For there is something about Lucinda, the flash of thigh beneath her short skirt, the way every man on the train is eyeing her, something about this time of the morning that will make Charles take a chance he shouldn’t take, break a vow he shouldn’t break, and enter a room he should never enter...

“In a matter of days, a flirtation turns to a passion, and Charles and Lucinda are drawn into the dark side of the American Dream. In a matter of weeks, Charles’s life is in shambles. A man is dead. A small fortune is stolen. Charles’s home is violated and everything violently spirals out of control.

“But Charles is about to discover that once you leave the straight and narrow, getting back on track is the most perilous journey of all. And for Charles, that journey– of lies, terror and deception – has just begun...”

Review:

Difficult-to-set-down suspense novel, with many twists and turns – most of them effective, a few of them predictable (especially for noir afficionados). Siegel’s characters read like real people. The plot and action never lags, though, and the twists are often inspired bits of spitefulness and, occasionally, redemption.

This is a tidy thriller with an ending that is realistic, noirish and satisfactory to those readers who want a Hollywood-style finish. In short: a good read.

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The film version was released stateside on November 11, 2005.

Clive Owen played Charles Schine. Jennifer Aniston played Lucinda Harris. Vincent Cassel played Phillipe LaRoche; in the novel, this character was named Raul Vasquez.

RZA played Winston Boyko. Melissa George played Deanna Schine.
Xzibit played Dexter. Tom Conti played Eliot Firth.

Mikael Håfström directed the film, from a script by Stuart Beattie.