Redemption Games (A John Rain Novel)

From Publishers Weekly At the start of Eisler's taut and compelling fourth thriller to feature John Rain (after 2004's Rain Storm ), the freelance assassin's latest employer, Israeli intelligence, has sent him and his longtime associate, Dox, to Manila to kill weapons dealer Manheim Levi. Just as Rain is about to make his move, however, Levi's young son suddenly appears on the scene; Levi's bodyguards wind up shot while Levi and his son escape. The dead bodyguards turn out to be ex-CIA; and Jim Hilger, the renegade Company man with whom they were also working, is upset enough to ask his own specialists to exact revenge. Trying to find a way to complete his mission, Rain contacts Delilah, a fellow intelligence agent with whom he's been involved. But her Mossad colleagues, who have lost their trust in Rain's reliability, are setting up their own plan to take care of him. The plot has enough twists and turns to satisfy, and Eisler is an adept hand at pacing and suspense. The dialogue generally rings true, though the switching back and forth between first- and third-person narrative can be distracting. Various exotic Asian locales add to the appeal. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From Booklist Freelance assassin John Rain returns for a fourth outing. He has a new boss, the Israeli intelligence organization Mossad; a new partner, the affable sniper Dox; and a new outlook: maybe killing only bad people will help him feel better about himself. The plan falls apart, however, when Rain botches his assignment and winds up on the run, from both his current employer and his former colleagues at the CIA. The Rain series has been compared to Ian Fleming's James Bond novels, but there's one important difference: Fleming never took Bond seriously, and Eisler takes Rain very seriously indeed. That's not necessarily bad, of course, but it may be easier to sustain the superkiller premise if you can laugh at it a little. Killing Rain is the weakest in the series, but it's by no means a failure. There's plenty of nicely detailed action here, and if the idea of a hard-edged professional killer with a conscience seems to be losing some of its oomph, Eisler is a skilled enough writer to resuscitate his hero next time out. David Pitt. Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved “HIGH-OCTANE ACTION.” ― South Florida Sun-Sentinal “COMPELLING.” ― San Francisco Chronicle “EACH RAIN BOOK HAS BEEN SUPERB.…Eisler…fascinates with inside detail.” ― The Santa Fe New Mexican “Exhilarating... Eisler unspools a plot full of warring secret government connections, cool spy paraphernalia, and vivid martial-arts sequences.” ― Entertainment Weekly Introduction to the New Edition Every time I write a new book in a series, I begin by asking what happened to the characters in the previous book, and build on that. When I started A Lonely Resurrection , for example, the second Rain book, I asked myself, "What would Rain do now that his archenemy Yamaoto and the CIA have tracked him down in Tokyo? What would Tatsu, of the Japanese National Police Force, do with the disk full of incriminating political information Rain acquired for him? And what about Midori, Rain's lover, whose father Rain killed? Would she really believe Rain was dead? What would she do if she suspected the truth?" Similarly, to discover the story in Winner Take All , the third book, I asked, "Did Rain manage to disappear in Brazil as he was planning in A Lonely Resurrection ? Did he reconnect in Rio with his new love interest, Naomi Nascimento? What post-nine-eleven plans would CIA operative Kanezaki have for Rain, and how would he track Rain down outside in Japan?" But I think my favorite example of how each book builds on the events of the previous one is Redemption Games. Here's what happened. At the end of Winner Take All (spoiler alert!), Rain is stunned to learn that he can trust former Marine sniper Dox, who was sent to kill Rain but wound up working with him, and indeed saving his life, instead. This realization ruptures Rain's conviction that he can trust no one, rely on no one -- a conviction that's central to his self-image and his whole worldview. I knew this change had to be central to the new story, but I wasn't sure how. I mentioned what I was grappling with to my friend Marc MacYoung of NoNonsenseSelfDefense.com (nnsd.com). Marc said, "Ah, you need to talk to Terry Trahan." I knew Terry from NNSD's listserv and from having trained with him a bit at one of the annual NNSD barbecues, but I didn't know his story. Marc put us in touch, and Terry generously answered my many questions. What he told me was fascinating. A former street criminal and veteran of countless violent encounters, Terry was working as a bouncer when he started dating a woman who has since become his wife. He didn't know why this woman would love a criminal like him, but he decided he wanted to be worthy of her love. He wanted to get out of the life. And he started trying to do so. But he was still bouncing, and then one night, while he was struggling with the imbalance of living with one foot still in the life and one foot out of it, he was faced with a routine confrontation in the bar. Just something with an unruly patron, the kind of thing he had successfully handled dozens of times before. But this time, Terry froze. Fortunately, the encounter ended without lasting damage for Terry, and he learned something profound from it—something he shared with me. Which is how vulnerable a person can be during the transition from one kind of life to another. As he described all this to me, I could feel that light bulb go on over my head—"Of course! That's exactly what happens to Rain. His worldview is all messed up because of how Dox saved him, he gets hired for a new job, and... he freezes! He blows the hit! And then whoever hired him comes after him as a way of cleaning up the mess Rain has caused..." Which, like all good ideas, immediately led to all the right questions: "Okay, who hired Rain? Maybe the Israelis? Yes, there was more than a hint of that possibility in Winner Take All , where Rain crosses paths—and swords— with gorgeous Mossad agent Delilah, who's destined to become his lover. Okay, who would the Mossad want Rain to kill? And why? And how would Dox be involved?" How indeed? Read on to find out. Barry Eisler spent three years in a covert position with the CIA, then worked as a technology lawyer and startup executive in Silicon Valley and Japan, earning his black belt at the Kodokan International Judo Center along the way. Eisler’s bestselling thrillers have won the Barry Award and the Gumshoe Award for Best Thriller of the Year, have been included in numerous “Best Of” lists, and have been translated into nearly twenty languages. To learn more, please visit barryeisler.com. From AudioFile The idea of a tough-guy freelance assassin with a conscience seems farfetched. The protagonist of Eisler's series, John Rain, obsessively questions his work and the consequent rising death toll, all the while continuing to do what he does best. But Michael McConnohie is adept at pacing and suspense, and Eisler's plot has enough twists to maintain interest. The setting of exotic Manila adds to the drama. McConnohie is credible in his presentation of the Japanese-American Rain, who has been hired this time by the Mossad to take care of some Asian problems. The story's dialogue generally rings true, though the continual switching of point of view is especially challenging on audio. K.A.T. © AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine. Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine Read more