Killing Rain Review

Yesterday in a marathon reading session I read KILLING RAIN by Barry Eisler. Once again Eisler has served up the perfect thriller starring his anti-hero John Rain. KILLING RAIN, Eisler's fourth novel and the fourth novel to feature his japanese-american assasin John Rain, picks up about a year after the events in RAIN STORM. We are immediately thrust into the action as John Rain, now partnered with Dox who we met in RAIN STORM, is stalking his prey and once the initial attempt to take down the target goes wrong, John and Dox are on the run and having to play damage control. Woven in to the rest of the novel, in which John and Dox are trying to find a way out of the rat's nest their failure has enmeshed them in, are the quick and brutal fight scenes, descriptions of well researched (or perhaps practiced) tradecraft, and exotic locales which have become the staple of a John Rain/Barry Eisler novel. To anyone who enjoys a thriller, I cannot give Eisler's novels any higher of a recommendation. Eisler and John Rain have reintroduced me to a field of literature that I had ignored for years (I think the last thriller I read was the Tom Clancy novel after A CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER). I always consider them $25 well spent and although I am disappointed that I can read one in one sitting, I attribute that to Eisler's skill as an author. Either after the manuscript is done or while he is writing it, he mercilessly wields an editorial scalpel and carves away everything but the essence of the story. In much the same manner that John Rain lives his life. For now.