A Clean Kill in Tokyo
A Clean Kill in Tokyo
Ratings14
Average rating4
Series
10 primary books11 released booksJohn Rain is a 11-book series with 10 primary works first released in 2003 with contributions by Barry Eisler.
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A great story, an exploration of Tokyo, lessons in tradecraft from a master assassin, and a meditation on loss of humanity. A winner.
A half Japanese, half American Viet Nam war veteran John Rain is an assassin with the knack for making his kills look like natural causes. A Clean Kill In Tokyo is the first of Barry Eisler's Rain novels and it's a tough, intelligent thriller with an unusual, interesting protagonist.
Set in Tokyo around the turn of the century, Rain is an assassin for hire, a man living in the shadows of the Japanese world, of it and yet not. And when the killing of a Japanese government official has unexpected repercussions, Rain's life is turned upside down. He is drawn into a web of conspiracy involving high level corruption, the Yakuza and the daughter of the man he's just killed.
Eisler knows Japan, having lived and worked there and his descriptions of Tokyo are grounded in personal experience, with a little creative licence thrown in. Rain is a complex creation, haunted by his Viet Nam experiences, yet cultured and intelligent, a Jazz fan and connoisseur of Whiskey. He has created a carefully hidden life in Tokyo which allows him to appear as a legitimate businessman while carrying out his more lethal activities. Eisler is a good writer and keeps the story moving at a pace while allowing for character development. The story is punctuated by visceral bursts of violence which are all the more effective for being brief and to the point.
By the end Rain has gone through quite the journey and Eisler has effectively set up an ongoing series. A great read. Recommended.
The details the author wanted to explain got in the way of the story. I didn't hate the book, just didn't enjoy it.
John Rain is an assassin for hire…
John has three rules:
We start with John killing a high/mid-level politician. During the assassination a bystander takes an unusual amount of interest in the dead person, which John notes. Later John is unwinding at a local Jazz club, where coincidentally the musician is the daughter of the politician he just killed, the bystander appears again and talks to the daughter. Believing his broker has violated one of his rules he starts to investigate the bystander. As part of that investigation he has more interaction with the daughter, which leads them to become romantically involved. John's job then morphs from assassinating people to trying to prevent the assassination of a person, the daughter.
The good point is that John is a believable character, no special super-secret training that has turned him into a killing machine. Barry Eisler provides a reasonable amount of back story on John’s military career and childhood, so you understand how John can mentally be an assassin. However, there isn’t much back story on how John transitioned the skill set of killing someone with a rifle to a pacemaker.
The story progresses well from initial assassination through protecting the daughter. Unfortunately, for me, Barry includes a lot of descriptions of streets, hotels, restaurants, and sections of Tokyo. While I understand the desire to build the atmosphere, this along with the periodic dialog in Japanese just became words I skipped over, having never been to Tokyo nor am I ever planning to go, it really just was fluff.
The question by the end of the book is the future direction of John. While he has a code he lives by at the end, which kind of implies he only kills bad people, the reality is he has still killed people for money, and he isn’t really punished for his crimes. While he has tried to change directions