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RAIN FALL
by Barry Eisler
G. P.Putnam's Sons, July 2002
306 pages
$24.95
ISBN: 0399149104.01

Occasionally when thriller writers decide to set a novel in an extraordinary locale it is because they have nothing out of the ordinary to say in their story and the location serves as a hopeful distraction from that creative bankruptcy. Happily, Barry Eisleršs debut novel Rain Fall does not fall into that category. Both his locale, present day Japan, and Eisleršs titular protagonist, John Rain, are well integrated with one another.

John Rain is a Japanese-American businessman living anonymously in Tokyo. Rainšs past, as a young Special Forces operative in Vietnam and later murky career with the CIA, is hidden from most who now know him. His present trade, murder for hire, would be considered appalling were he not plying it in and around the culture of Japanese government and business, for whom the samurai or ronin (a samurai without a master) are not only acceptable, but necessary.

Hired assassins are a staple character of the thriller genre and it is rare that an author is able to make one rise above the mundane, but rise above it John Rain does. Credit Barry Eisler with creating in John Rain a protagonist who is an outcast as much for who he is as much for what he does. Because of his mixed blood origins, John Rain is not quite accepted in either of his hereditary cultures, yet when his skills are required, both cultures seem to find a way to use him. This dichotomy is a key element in the story, as his current employers, Japanese business and government leaders and his former employer, the CIA, struggle to gain control of both his soul and his services for their own purposes.

Eisler, who spent many years living and working in Japan, has a deep understand of both Japan and its people and he skillfully renders a country that exists only nominally in the 21st Century. The Japanese values and beliefs, as depicted by Eisler, are still very much a part of the culture that existed over 500 years ago before the first westerners arrived. That includes the belief that the use of hired killers to achieve either political or business aims is both righteous and appropriate.

John Rain anonymously plies his trade in this netherworld until the CIA discovers one of its former employees involved in influencing Japanese politics and cynically decides to exploit that circumstance for their own purposes. Their pursuit of him threatens to make him a deadly liability to his current employer and Rain must fight on two fronts to keep himself alive.

Rain Fall is well plotted and briskly told story. Eisleršs narrative voice never falters and his characters, particularly the Japanese, are well rendered. He manages his Byzantine plot with the skill of a seasoned professional, making sure not to leave any of the threads dangling at the end. In John Rain, Eisler has created an appealing and enigmatic hero and, according to the jacket copy, he is working on a second novel with him. I, for one, canšt wait for it to Rain again.

Reviewed by Michael Grollman, December 2002

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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