Hard Rain [Paperback]

Barry Eisler (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 2, 2004

John Rain has gone to ground. He's had enough of doing people's dirty work for them. He's had his fill of killing. Yet when his old nemesis tracks him down, he is forced to do his bidding. Powerful, secretive elements threaten to bring down the government - and Rain must stop them the only way he knows how. Getting involved will expose his few friends and contacts to extreme danger. But no one knows this business like John Rain, and no one would underestimate a man protecting all he holds dear...

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Barry Eisler's half-breed freelance assassin John Rain returns to Tokyo for a second outing in Hard Rain, the sequel to Eisler's stunning 2002 debut, Rain Fall. Once again Rain is working with, or at least parallel to, Tatsu, a wily veteran of Japan's FBI equivalent, who aims to cleanse the Japanese government of its systemic corruption. 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.

From Publishers Weekly

Rain Fall (2002), Eisler's first book about Japanese-American Vietnam vet John Rain, a hired assassin for government agencies in Tokyo and Washington, worked so well that the author wisely decided to keep all the elements intact in this captivating follow-up. Once again, the nightscape of Tokyo is painted in beautifully dark tones, scored to the live jazz of the clubs where Rain drinks from a menu of expensive single malt whiskeys. Once again, Rain knows everything about the arts of killing and avoiding surveillance-from the sound a man's ribs make when he's crushed to death trying to lift too much weight to how to use a container of very hot tea to ruin a would-be pursuer's day. Once again Rain has to decide whether any of the people he's working for-the shrewd Tatsu, a veteran agent of Japan's FBI who seems to be dedicated to battling high-level corruption; various shady American CIA agents-are to be trusted. And once again, Rain realizes how alone he really is, despite the promise of love and companionship from a couple of very interesting women. "I had understood even as a child that to be half Japanese is to be half something else, and to be half something else is to be... chigatte. Chigatte, meaning `different,' but equally meaning `wrong.' The language, like the culture, makes no distinction." The plot itself is a complicated one about a CIA scheme called Crepuscular, designed to clean up-or possibly further corrupt-Japan's tangled mess of business and politics. Eisler acknowledges the help of experts in many areas, but it's his own impressive literary skills that make his John Rain such a fascinating, touching and wholly believable character.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 464 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Books; Airside ed edition (December 2, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0141010118
• ISBN-13: 978-0141010113
• Product Dimensions: 10.5 x 6.9 x 4.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (98 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,001,684 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

26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Deeper and More complex than the original..., September 24, 2003

By 

therosen "therosen" (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Hard Rain (Hardcover)

Rain Fall ended with several loose ends around, "But if X and Y happened, wouldn't Z happen too?" There were several character holes, and a few logical consequences that needed to be followed.

Would the bad guys really believe John Rain's fake death? What would happen to Midori? Wasn't Harry traceable?

The book opens up more of John Rain's character, showing both his strenghts and some more obvious weaknesses. (Why can't spies like him not shag every girl they meet?) It also closes several loose ends hanging over from previous books. We learn more about John Rain's ruthlessness, as well as which rules he's willing to bend, and which not.

The plot gets complex near the end. You're left with enough "But what about this?" items to guarantee another episode. (At least I hope so!) If there's one downside of the book, perhaps a few of the supporting charachters (particularly in the CIA) were not as believable as I'd expect.

The equisite writing of Tokyo life continues to capture the reader. It'll introduce you in a very realistic way to one of the world's great cities. If you've been there, this should bring back some great memories.

Enjoy!

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Ride, August 19, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Hard Rain (Hardcover)

I loved Hard Rain! I'm neither a professional nor an amateur book reviewer, and I do not pretend to be. I agree completely, however, with the glowing reviews this book is receiving. After reading Barry Eisler's first novel, Rain Fall, I was doubtful the sequal would hold up, especially since I expected the novelty to have worn off. Boy, was I wrong. Tokyo's nightlife, with its driving rythem and flavor, comes to life. For those, like me, who have never been there, we finish the book feeling as if we had. It is a real talent to make the average person piture themselves as Rain -- a killer afterall -- while reading this story. This book is exciting and great fun. Although I've never surfed, reading this book is like what I imagine the feeling is when a surfer catches that wave and rides it all the way into shore. It doesn't get any better than that.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars I eagerly anticipate the continuing story of John Rain., July 31, 2003

By 

David M. Gordon (Summerlin, NV) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Hard Rain (Hardcover)

"Unpredictability is the key to being a hard target, but the concept applies to both time and place... Seriously protecting yourself calls for the annihilation of ties with society, ties that most people need the way they need oxygen. You give up friends, family, romance. You walk through the world like a ghost, detached from the living around you."

"I made a point of visiting some of the places near Osaka that I knew I would never see again... I supposed it was strange to feel the urge to say goodbye to any of this. After all, none of it had ever been mine. I had understood even as a child that to be half Japanese is to be half something else, and to be half something else is to be ... chigatte meaning "different," but equally meaning "wrong." The language, like the culture, makes no distinction."

Some authors create a fictional world, and then milk it for everything it is worth - but not Barry Eisler. In only his second novel, HARD RAIN, Eisler's interest lies in telling a tale of a character, not plot. Interestingly, plot is almost non-existent in HARD RAIN - which makes this novel that much better. HARD RAIN is more an examination of character, of society, of relationships, of the connections between people than the usual plot-driven thriller in which the characters move about duex ex machina.

Make no mistake, John Rain is a fully formed character: plagued by doubts, uncertainty, melancholy, even age in a world where he is an assassin with little forgiveness for others no matter how important each might be in his own life. (The novel's title assumes multiple meanings, shadings, intent.) There are many scenes (not enough, in my opinion) wherein John Rain thinks, recalls, reflects, becomes wistful, even regretful; all very Zen, existential... for a killer.

In fact, Barry Eisler handily eludes the much feared `sophomore jinx,' as he uses his supple prose to edify his readers as well as entertain them; Eisler retains full command of his reader's attention on each page. Has any author - in particular, any genre author - ever invested so much effort to make scene and setting as integral to the tale as characters and plot? The Midori, Tatsu, Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, and Juki Net that live in Eisler's fictional world lives in ours as well, not solely as metaphor, but alive.

HARD RAIN offers exciting moments of frisson, as we learn more of Rain's profession, of his isolated, insular lifestyle, of his life. He is a likable character, even though he is an assassin. Rain's likeability, along with his desire to move among the living as a `ghost,' serves as an intriguing dichotomy to his perception of himself as divorced and isolated from his own country, his own people. The paradox is that Rain is a particularly astute and keen observer. So while he moves through the various strata of Japanese society as a ghost, he still breathes life into the world he inhabits. Even as he kills.

Barry Eisler is simply magisterial in his dual feat of creation: both John Rain AND Japan is a successful rival to Chandler's Phillip Marlowe in Los Angeles and Hammet's Sam Spade in San Francisco.

Highly recommended. I eagerly anticipate the continuing story of John Rain.