Helpful Score: 3
This is the second in the series. I wasn't sure about the concept of a "good" assassin in the first book but I enjoyed it enough to try #2 and I really liked it. John's character is changing as he gets older and experiences love that he can't reciprocate and targets he doesn't want to kill, making him human and more believable. I enjoy the spycraft but I always want to like my characters also - I am going for #3.
Helpful Score: 1
The action is great but I also enjoyed the cultural information on Japan.
Helpful Score: 1
This book and "Rain Fall" by the same author are quite good. A thriller placed in Japan, which is really quite unusual.
Helpful Score: 1
John Rain's second adventure provides a tour of Tokyo and a list of brand names for the lover of single malt whisky.
Helpful Score: 1
The second installment in the John Rain series finds the protagonist in semi-retirement. But he soon learned that retirement isn't really in his cards. Wonderful descriptions of Tokyo and page-turning action.
This book was good. However, it was a little too violent for my taste. Still, I did find it hard to put down.
Barry Eisler's half-breed freelance assassin John Rain returns to Tokyo. To further this goal, he's persuaded the ever-cautious Rain to take out Murakami, a brutal gangster and hitman who specializes in making his killings look like suicide, a specialty Rain thought was his alone. Liquidating the dangerous and elusive Murakami proves to be a difficult task, however, one that leads to personal loss for Rain, and sets the plot on course for a climax that hits with the power of a well-delivered roundhouse kick.
Eisler builds on Rain's self-enforced isolation and loneliness as he expertly shows the reader Tokyo as channeled by Chandler, transforming the burgeoning metropolis into a noir catacomb of dimly lit hostess bars, scheming bureaucrats, shadowy intelligence agents, and outlaw martial arts dojos where thugged-up yakuza train for illicit death matches.
While the plot becomes complicated toward the novel's conclusion, Rain is a refreshing and complex character whom readers will want to see return for another installment. If you've a yen for a thriller that mixes suspense, intrigue, and action with a Japanese flavor and a hardboiled American attitude, Eisler's Hard Rain is an excellent choice. --Benjamin Reese --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Eisler builds on Rain's self-enforced isolation and loneliness as he expertly shows the reader Tokyo as channeled by Chandler, transforming the burgeoning metropolis into a noir catacomb of dimly lit hostess bars, scheming bureaucrats, shadowy intelligence agents, and outlaw martial arts dojos where thugged-up yakuza train for illicit death matches.
While the plot becomes complicated toward the novel's conclusion, Rain is a refreshing and complex character whom readers will want to see return for another installment. If you've a yen for a thriller that mixes suspense, intrigue, and action with a Japanese flavor and a hardboiled American attitude, Eisler's Hard Rain is an excellent choice. --Benjamin Reese --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
