The Detachment (John Rain Thrillers) [Paperback]

Barry Eisler (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 18, 2011 | Series: John Rain Thrillers

John Rain is back. And “the most charismatic assassin since James Bond” (San Francisco Chronicle) is up against his most formidable enemy yet: the nexus of political, military, media, and corporate factions known only as the Oligarchy.

When legendary black ops veteran Colonel Scott “Hort” Horton tracks Rain down in Tokyo, Rain can’t resist the offer: a multi-million dollar payday for the “natural causes” demise of three ultra-high-profile targets who are dangerously close to launching a coup in America.

But the opposition on this job is going to be too much for even Rain to pull it off alone. He’ll need a detachment of other deniable irregulars: his partner, the former Marine sniper, Dox. Ben Treven, a covert operator with ambivalent motives and conflicted loyalties. And Larison, a man with a hair trigger and a secret he’ll kill to protect.

From the shadowy backstreets of Tokyo and Vienna, to the deceptive glitz and glamour of Los Angeles and Las Vegas, and finally to a Washington, D.C. in a permanent state of war, these four lone wolf killers will have to survive presidential hit teams, secret CIA prisons, and a national security state as obsessed with guarding its own secrets as it is with invading the privacy of the populace.

But first, they’ll have to survive each other.

The Detachment is what fans of Eisler, “one of the most talented and literary writers in the thriller genre” (Chicago Sun-Times), have been waiting for: the worlds of the award-winning Rain series, and of the bestselling Fault Line and Inside Out, colliding in one explosive thriller as real as today’s headlines and as frightening as tomorrow’s.

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Book Description: John Rain is back. And “the most charismatic assassin since James Bond” (San Francisco Chronicle) is up against his most formidable enemy yet: the nexus of political, military, media, and corporate factions known only as the Oligarchy.

When legendary black ops veteran Colonel Scott “Hort” Horton tracks Rain down in Tokyo, Rain can’t resist the offer: a multi-million dollar payday for the “natural causes” demise of three ultra-high-profile targets who are dangerously close to launching a coup in America.

But the opposition on this job is going to be too much for even Rain to pull it off alone. He’ll need a detachment of other deniable irregulars: his partner, the former Marine sniper, Dox. Ben Treven, a covert operator with ambivalent motives and conflicted loyalties. And Larison, a man with a hair trigger and a secret he’ll kill to protect.

From the shadowy backstreets of Tokyo and Vienna, to the deceptive glitz and glamour of Los Angeles and Las Vegas, and finally to a Washington, D.C. in a permanent state of war, these four lone wolf killers will have to survive presidential hit teams, secret CIA prisons, and a national security state as obsessed with guarding its own secrets as it is with invading the privacy of the populace.

But first, they’ll have to survive each other.

The Detachment is what fans of Eisler, “one of the most talented and literary writers in the thriller genre” (Chicago Sun-Times), have been waiting for: the worlds of the award-winning Rain series, and of the bestselling Fault Line and Inside Out, colliding in one explosive thriller as real as today’s headlines and as frightening as tomorrow’s.

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J.A. Konrath and Blake Crouch Review The Detachment
 
Bestselling authors J.A. Konrath and Blake Crouch are the co-writers of the thriller Stirred, available on Kindle November 22, 2011, and in paperback on February 21, 2012. Read on for their one line reviews of Barry Eisler's The Detachment, or click the link below to read their full review:

J.A. Konrath: "I read it so quickly that my eyeballs got whiplash."

Blake Crouch: "I read this book on a 12-hour flight, after I'd already been up for 18 hours. Anything less than flat-out riveting and I would've instantly been asleep. It was like literary adrenaline."

Continue Reading Konrath's and Crouch's Review of The Detachment

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Personal Safety Tips from Assassin John Rain
 
(Written by Barry Eisler)

Barry Eisler spent three years in a covert position with the CIA, then worked as a technology lawyer and start-up executive in Silicon Valley and Japan, earning his black belt at the Kodokan International Judo Center along the way. Eisler's bestselling John Rain 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 20 languages.

Read on for personal safety tips from assassin John Rain:

All effective personal protection, all effective security, all true self-defense, is based on the ability and willingness to think like the opposition.

I'm writing this article on my laptop in a crowded coffee shop I like. There are a number of other people around me similarly engaged. I think to myself, If I wanted to steal a laptop, this would be a pretty good place to do it. You come in, order coffee and a muffin, sit, and wait. Eventually, one of these computer users is going to get up and make a quick trip to the bathroom. He'll be thinking, "Hey, I'll only be gone for a minute." He doesn't know that a minute is all I need to get up and walk out with his $3,000 laptop. (Note how criminals are adept at thinking like their victims. You need to treat them with the same respect.)

Okay. I've determined where the opposition is planning on carrying out his crime (this coffee shop), and I know how he's going to do it (snatch and dash). I now have options:

• avoid the coffee shop entirely (avoid where the crime will occur);
• secure my laptop to a chair with a twenty dollar Kensington security cable (avoid how the crime will occur--it's hard to employ bolt cutters unobtrusively in a coffee shop, or to carry away a laptop that has a chair hanging off it); and
• hope to catch the thief in the act, chase him down, engage him with violence.

Continue Reading Personal Safety Tips from Assassin John Rain

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From Publishers Weekly

Living in quiet semi-retirement in Tokyo, John Rain tries to avoid his old life as an assassin until a group of men approaches him with an offer difficult to refuse. Colonel Scott Horton wants the group to assassinate three targets who are attempting a coup: the director of the national counterterrorism center, the president's counterterrorism advisor, and a Supreme Court justice. Rain and his companions -- Dox, Larison, and Treven -- discover they have unwittingly put the coup in place and are blamed for a series of false flag attacks on U.S. soil that spark national outrage. Full of twists, turns, and double-crosses, this team of assassins travels from Tokyo to Vienna to Washington D.C., avoiding secret prisons and presidential hit lists. Rain, Dox, Larison and Treven's group dynamic is strong and their motives are always clear. Dox makes an excellent comic foil for Rain and the borderline-sociopathic Larison, but readers will find all four as sympathetic and likeable as one could possibly find a group of trained killers. Fans of Eisler will be thrilled, and new ones will be inspired to go back and look at his previous work.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 324 pages
• Publisher: Thomas & Mercer (October 18, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1612181554
• ISBN-13: 978-1612181554
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (229 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,248 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

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. The first book in Eisler's assassin John Rain series, Rain Fall, is now a minor motion picture (kidding, it's reasonably major) starring Gary Oldman. To learn more, please visit www.barryeisler.com. Or Facebook, MySpace, or Twitter.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

119 of 132 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The wait is over, Rain and company are back!, September 15, 2011

By 

Andrew Brown - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Detachment (John Rain) (Kindle Edition)

The author, Barry Eisler, scores another dramatic hit with this latest, and much anticipated, installment in the John Rain series. An exceptional read and proof once again, as though any more were needed, that Eisler stands firmly atop the genre. The Rain series has been a personal favorite since book one and it just keeps getting better with each new addition to the canon. With his trademark hyper-realism Eisler once again draws the reader into the murky world of globe trotting spies and assassins. The combination of characters from previous works was engaging, entertaining and fantastically well done. The best parts of Eisler's novels has always been the attention to detail he puts into each scene and the humanity he brings to his characters. It is so easy for an author to fall into the trap, in this genre in particular, of making his characters two dimensional cookie cutter action heroes with zero soul. Eisler has been able to avoid this completely with each of his finely wrought characters through an entire excellent series. The reader genuinely cares about what happens to these guys, and girls, as they deal with betrayal, power, corruption, personal loss and all of the other very human failings and pitfalls Eisler sets before them. The methods and means his characters employ to do what they do are always spot on and refreshingly realistic. The settings and situations too are exceptionally well researched and frighteningly plausible. Barry Eisler is beyond a doubt my favorite modern author of espionage fiction. The long awaited return of John Rain and company was well worth the wait. Five stars for this up-all-night page turner!
Andrew Brown
Author of:
The Grey Line: Modern Corporate Espionage and Counterintelligence

83 of 93 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars I wish I felt differently..., September 25, 2011

By 

agent210 (Bay Area, Ca) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Detachment (John Rain) (Kindle Edition)

I have read all of Barry's books, starting with Fault Line followed by Inside Out. I then read all of the Rain series. Some of his books I read twice. I recommended Inside Out to students, friends, and have given it as a gift. I am Dox's #1 fan and hope a novel will be written about his back story. I anxiously anticipated the release of The Detachment. I even bought a Kindle due to Barry's recent deal with Amazon and that the ebook would be released before the paper version. (I prefer the feel of a real book but I know I am losing that battle. I read the book twice before writing this review.

So writing how disappointed I am with The Detachment was not an easy choice to make. If you have not read any of Barry's books, you will enjoy the book and the camaraderie between the men. I feel that I know these characters very well and it could be because of that connection, I expected more.

This relationship between the characters felt forced which is one of the reasons I had a hard time believing the story line. Without giving anything away, knowing the characters from other novels and putting them together, in this way, did not work for me.

I also agree with the previous reviewer who mentioned the peachiness of the novel. All writers have their opinions and Inside Out has a definite opinion expressed. Given I had waited so long for this book and had such high expectations; I just wanted escapism and a hot sex scene for Dox. I didn't get either.

I am sure I will read Barry's next novel but my expectations have been tempered so there will not be the anticipation that there was with this one.

49 of 56 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Indulge your dark side. Read it. You know you want to!, September 16, 2011

By 

K. Rosenberg "Baxman" (Mountain View, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Detachment (John Rain) (Kindle Edition)

"Sir, I guess there's just a meanness in this world." - Bruce Springsteen, Nebraska

It's rare when I pick up a book and read it cover to cover in one day. But that's what happened when I opened up Barry Eisler's 9th novel. I simply couldn't put it down.

If you've read his other books, then you know that he has written a six book series for John Rain (so far!) and a two book series for Ben Treven. Characters from both series are brought together in The Detachment. So from the perspective of a long time fan, this book was the perfect blending of two story lines.

I don't want to give out spoilers, so allow me to describe my reaction to the book without actually providing plot details. What I especially appreciated in this story is how intricate and layered it is. I'm no writer of novels, but I can guess that having four very different main characters traveling together and practically in every scene together is no easy story to write. Keeping it realistic, suspenseful, and entertaining is something only writers at the top of their craft can do. Eisler succeeds in abundance. The issue with these four main characters is that they are all bad guys. Let's face it...they kill people for a living. Getting inside their head; being an observer to their insecurities, their doubts, their fears, is simply intense. But you end up rooting for them nonetheless.

One thing to note is that Eisler doesn't hold back his opinions about global (especially U.S) politics and policy. Being a former CIA agent, he sheds a scary visibility on things we read about in the news, but from another angle. He's either hyper-cynical or hyper-realistic. I am concerned (for him) about the former a scared (for all of us) by the latter. For he writes fictional novels about things that are real. Does he have access to information that the common citizen doesn't? If so, then damn. I think I need a shot of one of Rain's recommended scotch/whiskeys! What I think Eisler does - and does it so well - is to scour the best news sources (be they "establishment press", blogs, subject matter experts he personally knows, etc) and consolidates it into a plausible story that is current and insightful. What I especially appreciate is that he doesn't take our "protagonists"(??) and make them Jack Bauer superheroes. These are conflicted real characters being exposed to the belly of the beast and acting as brave as they are paranoid.

Lastly, I'll add that a day after finishing The Detachment, I continue to be emotionally satisfied. Yes, this is good fiction. But it's also like watching a good friend. What Eisler has succeeded in beyond everything else, is to take us to the abyss, and bring us back craving more.