This time the story is sraight out of Mission: Impossible. A high-ranking former KGB officer, known as "The Butcher" for his enthusiastic and highly effective activities, wants to defect. Locken's mission is to get him out from behind the Iron Curtain, despite the numerous forces—military, police, the secret services of more than one country—that will be trying just as hard to kill the turncoat.

Complicating things even further is the appearance of Locken's old partner, Jorn Perry, compared to whom Locken always felt much inferior, even giving himself the nickname of The Plodder. Perry wants the KGB target for the CIA, to extract all information they can from him. And if Locken won't step aside so Perry's team can get him, then Perry vows simply to take the man from Locken.

The story has all the pleasures of this kind of caper. In the beginning there's a very nice build up, starting with the KGB threat's first moves and some nice foreshadowing of Locken's appearance. (In the third chapter, a man searching an apartment in Rome notes, while looking through clothes in a closet, that the "right and left shoes of both pairs were worn unevenly" If you know Locken from the other books then you know that this is Locken's apartment.)

After a few murders and various other excitements and intrigue in Rome, Locken has to put his team together, which is always fun. In an interesting twist that's typical of the tone of the Locken novels, the first person Locken approaches simply says no. And this is a real no. You never see that character again. He doesn't change his mind and show up unexpectedly to rescue somebody.

In another ominous scene, Locken goes to have his shooting and moving skills evaluated by a former comrade on a professional assault course. The specialist's evalutaion is that Locken is "in shit shape" and is going to have to "count on prayer and adrenalin".

Which is how it always seems to be for Locken, facing terrible odds without any of the preparedness one would want.

Then of course there's the execution of the plan and the various things that go wrong. These are very adroitly handled by the author and it's hard to put the book down in this section.

Ultimately we end up back in Rome for a devastating conclusion. A Killing in Rome is a strangely muted title for this book. There are several killings in Rome, some even perhaps more figurative than literal, and the title seems too flimsy to handle all of what it could be suggesting.

Of course I can't think of a title that would be better so am happy to take it as it is.

The Locken novels were really good, unusual and exciting. I'll be checking out something else by Mr. Rostand one of these days.

The first line of A Killing in Rome is "On a coolish late September evening, the officer in charge of the embassy security watch was a KGB lieutenant named Melnichenko".