Barry Eisler

I’ve read all the John Rain books & “Graveyard of Memories” remains one of my favourite books of the last few years. Like that one, this features an older, wiser Rain reliving an episode from the beginning of his career as a hitman.

It’s 1982 & Rain has just returned to Tokyo looking for work. When he gets in touch with old contact & friend Miyamoto, it’s immediately clear things have changed. Miyamoto is now an important man in the government & in Rain’s absence has been forced show more to use a violent & sociopathic half-Russian named Victor Karkov. To the young & cocky Rain the solution is obvious…..he’ll get himself hired on to Karkov’s crew & kill him. Miyamoto will be out from under his thumb & free to send any jobs Rain’s way. Simple, right? Well…..

Eisler is a gifted writer & one of the things he excels at is creating plots that resemble an iceberg. On the surface is a basic premise, a single act that sets it all in motion. But as the chapters fly by, the complexity of the story becomes apparent as the scope of what was hidden is gradually revealed. In this case, there are many more players than Rain or Miyamoto could have known. And the people actually pulling all the strings make for a wry commentary on US-Japanese relations.

That’s all I’ll say about the plot. It’s much better if you go in blind & stumble along with the MC’s. What has always made this series stand out is the literary style of prose & fully realized characters. Yes, there is graphic violence. But as you spend time with Rain & learn his back story he only becomes more compelling & you begin to care for this damaged man.

Rain is the product of a Japanese father & American mother. As a child, he grew up in both countries but was fully accepted by neither. His “gift” was honed by military tours in Viet Nam & it was there he finally found a place to fit in. But a lifetime of slights has left its mark & you sense that little boy who was shunned by 2 cultures is never far below the surface. At this point, he’s only beginning to think about long term repercussions & the things he will never have…..companionship, someone to love, children. Because of his choices, he has consigned himself to a life of being alone.

This is a relatively short, fast paced read that you’ll whizz through to find out who is left standing at the end. It’s a snapshot of a young John Rain, hitman/budding philosopher, that pushes him a little further down the path of the man he will become. Highly recommend this series. show less

"Redemption Games" (formerly "Killing Rain" and "One Last Kill") is the fourth novel in Eisler's John Rain series. Rain is a Japanese-American professional assassin, who has lived in both countries and feels at home in both. Formerly of the Japanese Secret Service, he is now operating as a private contractor, often with a partner Dox. Sometimes he works with the CIA or Mossad. Sometimes he is at cross-purposes with these agencies. Although there have been many secret agent and assassin type show more novels over the years, the Rain series is among the best well-written and the first few novels were filled with an insider's view of Tokyo and the environs that really took the reader inside Japanese culture. These novels also contain numerous passages giving the readers informative tips about how to assess a dangerous situation, what to look for when you walk into a hotel, an airport lounge, a restaurant, how best to quickly dispose of enemy combatants.

This novel takes Rain to Manila, Bangkok, and Hong Kong. He is working with a partner, Dox, an ex-US Army sniper with a good-old boy manner, loud and abrasive, living large every minute, but who somehow, when he goes into sniper mode, disappears into the woodwork. Rain got a referral for this job through his Mossad contact and sometime-lover, the blonde bombshell Delilah and part of the story, particularly after the job goes sour, is whether he can trust her and whether he can ever let down his guard around her. Often, their goals are similar, but she has allegiances that he ultimately does not have.

Rain is not your typical assassin (as if you know what a typical assassin is like). He has morals and ethics and qualms about killing in front of children, but he is deadly as they come, preferring to work close up and there are few professionals in an agency that are of his caliber. "Killing isn't the hard part," he explains. "Getting close to the target, though, that takes some talent." As does making it look natural, his speciality. The hardest part, however, is living with it after.

There are few secret agent type novels (and, although, Rain isn't a secret agent, the stories are part of that genre) that are this well- written and this accessible. Rain isn't casual about what he does as Bond might be. Rather, everything he does has consequences, largely because he is operating on his own and anything he does might offend an agency, seal his death warrant, or screw up a personal relationship for him. The meat of this book is not just bang-bang, shoot-em-up, but Rain's paradoxical difficulties with dealing with what he does and who he can trust. And, it is a book (or series of books) that really stands out in this genre. show less

"Winner Take All" was an enjoyable continuation of the John Rain series but it lacked the impact and or depth of the first two books "A Clean Kill In Tokyo" and "A Lonely Resurrection".

The encouraging thing is that it seems to have managed a transition from John Rain from a lone wolf to someone who may have people he can trust. This should open out future books and increase the momentum of the character development.

John Rain is an assassin, particularly gifted at making his kills look like show more death by natural causes. In the course of this book he kills about a dozen people, most of them in a close up and personal way, and doesn't lose a moment's sleep over it, unless you count the fact that he realises that, in his fifties, he's starting to be less fast and to heal more slowly.

Barry Eisler's biggest achievement is to make me care about John Rain. Rain kills for money, trusts no one, feels that his mixed blood excludes him from both his Japanese and his American heritage, and leads a life so solitary that it leaves almost no trace on the world.

So what's to like? Perhaps his sense of regret that he is who he is? Perhaps his acceptance, uncoloured by excuses or mitigating arguments, that he is a killer? Perhaps his loyalty to the women in his life? Perhaps that the people he kills are, mostly, nastier than he is?

You see how seductive and corrupting these lines of argument are? That's the kind of man Rain is. His strong sense of self, his discipline and his endurance are seductive. You start to admire how he does what he does. You start to want him to survive, perhaps even to be happy. I can't say this is something I've ever felt about Iack Reacher.

Barry Eisler sets his books in places that, for me, are exotic but in which John Rain is clearly at home, or at least as at home as John Rain is ever going to get.

"Winner Take All" (I hate that title. The absence of an S at the end of TAKE, makes me stumble every time. What was Barry Eisler thinking?This was his third attempt at a title for this book and THIS is what he came up with?) is set in Macao and Rio, taking John out of the his comfort zone in Tokyo and setting him loose to become someone new.

This turns out to be almost cruel as John discovers that living in a new country with a new name doesn't change who he is, what he has done and what the people who know about him will always want him to do. I felt sorry for Rio John Rain. The Macao John Rain, not so much.

Rain makes his first kill in Macoa in the first few pages, taking out a fellow predator just on a suspicion. As the book progresses, Rain's body count rises rapidly. True, most of them were trying to kill him but his efficiency and his ability to compartmentalise are chilling.

The new thing, probably the best thing, in this book is that John starts to trust at least two, maybe three people (the tentative, almost reluctant quality of John's trust explains why I can't be entirely sure of the number).

I like the fact that John can see he's getting older and that this has consequences. I liked that the people he (probably) trusts are not people who would inspire trust in others. I liked the fact that, despite staying in the best hotels in Rio and Macao, Tokyo still calls to him. The scene where he returns to his old neighborhood and finds it changed and all evidence of his time there erased, was beautifully done.

I also love the way Barry Eisler reads his own novels. He improved my experience far beyond what I would have gained from the text alone.

I'll be back for more. show less

I read the Library of Congress talking book version of this novel, and the narration of John Haag is superb! The book is well written and the main character, though an assassin for hire, is someone I came to love. Smoothe flowing prose nicely portrays his professional side and his very human side. John Rain has been inducted into my "favorite characters " hall of fame. My digital book contains the first five Rain novels, and I will be reading them all in one sitting...something I usually show more don't do. There are now two authors only that I can read continually until series completion: Barry Eisler and Ridley Pearson. Mr Eisler, do not take this lightly. Pearson has been my top author since the mid nineties. Only now does he share that spot...with you sir. show less