The first four novels featuring the cold-blooded, nihilistic, contemplative Japanese/American assassin John Rain were true page turners. Rain was a killing machine, his specialty arranging murders that looked like "natural causes". He free-lanced, working for any client who met his flexible standards. He had only one rule: no women or children. But even that had a little leeway. Rain was a superb character: remorseless, nihilistic, but thoughtful and contemplative. He was a loner with only one or two people that might be called "friends" and even then Rain was always suspicious.
In the fifth novel, Rain discovered paternal love for the child he had conceived with Midori, a Japanese singer whose father Rain had assassinated. Rain started developing a conscience, a desire for another life, one where murder wasn't the order of the day. Rain, frankly, started losing his allure. The action that made the first four books pulse-pounders ebbed away.
In "Requiem For An Assassin", author Barry Eisler has effectively killed John Rain and it doesn't look like natural causes. In fact it looks like hubris. Barry Eisler apparently has bought into his own publicity.
Eisler hasn't lost his skill with words. He is still readable and a newcomer to Eisler and John Rain might very well find this book a passable read. Anyone familiar with John Rain may find this novel very disappointing. It took me more than six sessions to make my through this, often wondering why I was bothering. I hoped that Eisler would redeem himself in a successive chapter, but he didn't.
The plot is simple and can be described without spoiling it for anyone else. Former Marine sniper Dox, Rain's buddy on a couple of missions, is kidnapped from his island paradise by Hilger, the ex-CIA rogue Rain was chasing, but missed, in the last novel. Hilger contacts the always elusive Rain and tells him he must carry out three assassinations or Dox will die. Rain is in Paris, living with his current paramour Delilah, a Mossad agent. To save his friend, Rain reluctantly sets off on a series of assinations, but he is troubled: the old ice cold killer just doesn't come as easily any more.
There's a global chase that this time is boring. There are a few redeeming - to few - where Rain is in action, but otherwise the book is a bore. Way too much time is spent on Rain's thoughts about Delilah, including a gratuitous several page sex scene which does nothing to advance the story, but does lead one to question who Eisler thinks his audience is. Rain spends a lot of time reliving his youth in the army in Vietnam, including a visit to Saigon. Rain contemplates his relationship with Delilah, with Midori and the son he has held only once. Rain thinks way too much.
Eisler, unfortunately, injects his political thoughts way too often into the manuscript. Bad mistake since Eisler's political thinking is neither original nor necessary to the story. It's more a conceit: he's the author - he can put anything he wants in his book. But readers don't have to stand for having their own views attacked in a thriller. In short, if Eisler wanted to write a political polemic, that's what he should have written.
Eisler's ultimate sin in my eyes is one that most readers won't catch. Eisler thanks 54 people (and a deli) in his acknowledgements. He's got experts in bar room brawls, medical experts, experts in martial arts - but no experts in computer technology, which plays a big part in the story.
Put bluntly Eisler is ignorant of computer technology. Pathetically ignorant. Instead of consulting experts, he makes things up. Asking readers who may be conversant with the technology, as I am, to swallow his nonsense is an insult to readers that could have been avoided. And, in my opinion, should have been.
But Eisler simply makes his technology up out of whole cloth.
I won't detail all of Eisler's misstatements. If you don't know the technology, you probably won't recognize the nonsense.
One of the more irritating things Eisler does is have Rain purchase an Apple iPhone. Pity that the iPhone - which was neither available nor fully described at the time of Eisler's writing - won't do many of things that Rain does with it. Oh well, just more arrogance on the part of Eisler.
The ending of the book is unacceptable on several levels. For fear of spoiling, I won't get into a lot of detail, but the end result is to push Rain more and more in the direction of becoming an accredited metrosexual, wuss, wimp or whatever the current term is. Rain makes mistakes totally out of character for him - and, frankly, I was waiting for a chorus of "Kumbaya" to break out.
As a character, Barry Eisler has essentially killed off John Rain. Too bad - I enjoyed John Rain's single-minded ruthlessness and his skills as an assassin. As a wimp, Rain won't be getting any further attention from me. The first-time reader may find this a moderately acceptable time filler. If they don't read any or all of the first four novels, they will never know how rich the John Rain character was.
Jerry
