Barry Eisler

Livia Lone is back in #3 of her standalone series. Agent Little's daughter disappeared ten years ago, but he is still determined to find the person (or persons) responsible for her disappearance. He enlists Livia's help, and together they track down the offenders, one being the son of the Vice President of the U.S. As they get closer to locating the serial rapists/murderers, Livia is determined to hold nothing back and will stop at nothing to put an end to the series of sexual offenses.

I'm not sure if this is the final installment in this series or not. I expect it may be, in which case I am saddened, because it's hard not to root for a kick-ass female character such as Livia. Not sure what to say about this one, other than it carries the intensity of the previous two novels in another action-packed edge-of-your-seat thriller. With bad guys who display appallingly sickening characteristics, it's easy to root for Livia in any situation. I can't rate any one of this series better than the other. They're all good.… (more)

Yet another excellent thriller from Barry Eisler that brings his entire team of characters together under fire.

If you are a badass bad guy there are two offenses that you cannot do no matter what [if you want to live happily ever after]. You must not try to kill John Rain when he says no to your request to kill someone, if he rejects it leave it at that. Second, when deciding to move against him then do not try moving against his friends too since they all have extensive combat training and experience in chasing shadows because you are just getting over the head and there is no win situation here.

When unknown parties attempt to attack Livia and Rain they will start a coalition aiming first to eliminate those that aim for them but after details are leaked on the horrendous child-molesting ring within the US government itself everything moves up one level - bad guys just do not know what they got themselves into.

Loss of Ben Treven was unexpected but I guess this character was second only to Livia when it comes to mental health and ability to live normal life.

Excellent action, characters are as always great (although you might want to read some of the Rain books before this one just to be more acquainted with all of the characters).
Author always tries to talk about things that happen in real world and again he succeeds - from terrible child-molesting and slavery to high-level rich men and politicians and their goons you will find everything in this book (with very interesting links at the end for those interested in real-life events that were inspiration to the author).

Highly recommended to all Rain's, Livia's, Barry Eisler's and in general thriller fans.… (more)

Interesting thriller about a rather dysfunctional family (second novel with similar theme in last week for me - following Kevin Wignall's "The Fragile Thing").

Ben Treven is not very social person. You wont find him talking much about his feelings or thoughts. This led to dark cloud casting its shadow on Ben's relations with his family after particularly heart-breaking incident. Since nobody talks with anybody and everything is based on assumptions tensions grow.

Ben feels his family shunned him so he seeks [and ultimately finds] his purpose in the field that looks for that exact type of person, quiet professionals - military intelligence. He moves from assignment to assignment, acting as a robot, attacking enemies of his country mercilessly until his brother Alex calls him and asks him to help him. Somebody wants Alex dead and he wants to find out who and why.

This brings Ben from the shadows and sets him on course that will test his family ties but also his relation with the army and shadowy intelligence agency he trusts fully and without reserve.

Recommended to all fans of thrillers and action.… (more)