Locken has recovered quite a bit from his maiming in the previous novel. Part of the credit goes to tai chi. I thought that this might have been something the author picked up from the Peckinpah movie of The Killer Elite but it's hard to say.

Viper's Game has a copyright date of 1974 and The Killer Elite was apparently shot in March and April of 1974.

Of course there would have been a screenplay before that, and perhaps Rostand heard about what was in it or was otherwise somehow connected to the production or to people working on it.

Anyway, Viper's Game is, like The Killer Elite, an almost constant race for survival, scrambling to beat ever mounting odds, taking on ever more weight to carry while always running lower on supplies.

Locken has been placed on the island of São Tome as a piece in a geopolitical chess game.

A revolutionary leader names James Morais, who has been considerably well supplied and trained by some other powerful country, combines his small armed force with the considerable strengths of a Cargo Cult tribe that lives on the island.

Racial, political and colonial tensions that have been building up for years explode once Morais lights teh fuse and Locken find himself leading a small and very diverse group of adults as well as a larger group of orphaned children, in various directions over the island, simultaneously cautious and frantic, desperately trying just to stay ahead of their would be killers and, if possible, find some means to escape.

Morais quickly eliminates the military presence that was stationed on the island and takes over all means of communication, so they're really on their own.

As in The Killer Elite, Locken is aided by at least one very valuable expert: in this case a Vietnam veteran named Cooper, battle-hardened, very knowledgable and experienced and absolutely an asset when it comes to getting things done that have to be done.

Also as in The Killer Elite, there turn out to be some unpleasant surprises lurking beneath the surfaces of some of the characters.

Since part of Locken's backstory is his participation in the Cuban revolution, on the side of Castro and Guevara, he has firsthand knowledge of what's happening, and what Morais and his followers are likely to be doing.

Rostand improves on his previous novel in his handling of many of the characters. You shouldn't expect too much from the women in this book. There's a madonna/whore division without any subtlety between two of them, and for the third woman character, well she has to have sex with Locken in situations that seem like absurd times and places to have sex in. Even more regrettably and dismayingly she's a victim of rape fairly early on in the book. None of this does much for the story and she has enough of a character, as written, that I wish Rostand could have had some other things happen for her.

Otherwise the writing is extremely good.

One character, a shady and sleazy real estate developer that you know is going to be bad news in a big way and, hey, you're right, is introduced to us as he looks around the big resort hotel he's hoping to make a bundle from.

His gaze lands on giant aquarium for tropical fish that he's had installed behind the bar.

Rostand has a neat trick where he throws the reader into the future, a kind of foreshadowing that's not pretending to be anything other than foreshadowing. It gets you eager to turn the page. At one point Cooper rigs a booby trap with an assault rifle, so that when Morais's soldiers try to take the rifle, they get blown up by a bomb. "A chance of eliminating one or two more seemed worth the rifle. Later, Locken damned his shortsightedness."

And of course Locken has to fight himself as much as anything else. His body, which suffers numerous injuries during this ordeal—he has to get his ribs taped at one point— and his mind as well, which can only force him to keep going for so long, when it isn't trying to confuse him. "Anger, hatred, caring, they all distorted judgment."

In The Killer Elite there was something about how at least some of the characters were in it just for the action itself, to test themselves, to be victorious against overwhelming odds or to beat the best opponents they can find. Politics, money, personal vendettas, none of that mattered.

Locken floats more or less the same idea at one point and maybe there's something to that but hsi commitment seems deeper and more driven. Survival, yes, which can only be part of victory, but he gives the impression of caring as well. He's not sentimental, and when people die, they die, and there's not much point of making a big deal about it.

The first line is "A man with a gun".