"The Loo Sanction" by the pseudonymous Trevanian is not as good, alas, as his first effort "The Eiger Sanction". It has all the same ingredients, but while the earlier book seemed like a writing adventure the author himself enjoyed, this one has the feel of a commercial venture. It reads like an unexpired application of a successful formula. Jonathon Hemlock, the hero, is an internationally famous art critic and former government assassin, who accepted assignments only when he needed money to buy a stolen painting. His esthetics outweighed his ethics. This, like its inverse, is an occupational hazard all critics must face.

"The Loo Sanction" opens with a man impaled through the anus on a spike in a church tower—a baroque image if there ever was one. A Lesbian is "raped" to death with kitchen utensils, in what may be a convoluted pun on women's lib. The...