Another great hero to enjoy!!

I enjoyed this book because I liked witnessing the main character, who is a skilled assassin, navigate the complicated plot and kill his enemies, usually with his bare hands...

Looking at that sentence now, I wonder if I shouldn't be disturbed by my sentiment. I mean, I just admitted to enjoying an account of a man who makes a living by killing other people. Ask me point blank if this is ok, and my answer is, No, of course not. You shouldn't go around killing people. So what makes this book ok?

How much does the world intimidate you? It sure freaks me out, and regularly. All the information; the ease with which we can connect with millions of individuals; the powerful entities that steer major events and affect millions of lives without an ounce of compassion; the wars, the sickness, the poverty, the exploitation; "the yuppies networking:" it all constructively interferes in a cacophony of noise and activity that both teases and overwhelms my intellect. The world is huge, complex, fascinating, and maddening.

That last aspect, I think, makes a character like John Rain appealing. Once he worked for the big boys in the U.S. government, and once he fought in one of the government's dirty wars. He knows spycraft, and he knows how to fight, maim, and kill, if need be, with or without a weapon. He has contacts, information sources, and a bead on political developments and players. He is, in short, a modern explorer of the 21st century landscape, equipped to deal with its vicissitudes and unknowns, and competent enough to take on some of its more evil types.

Bad things are happening to good people in the world, and even if Rain has worked for the system, he is still a man of principle who can take on some of the people who are at the source of these bad doings. This talent, this ability to strike directly at the wrong-doers, is, at times, an appealing fiction. Hence, my positive reception of this otherwise disturbing premise.

Read this book on the plane back from Japan yesterday, on a recommendation from a friend.
It's a quite enjoyable thriller about a Japanese-American ex-Vietnam special forces assassin. Very easy to read and hard to put down. Full of references to a lot of things I like - jazz music, whisky, medicine/anatomy, and most especially - Japan. Reading this book after spending a few days in Tokyo really made it come alive for me as the places where the action took place were fresh in my memory. Would definitely recommend it and look forward to checking out the next volume in the John Rain series.

#25 - 2010.

Recommended by Matt. American born, half-Japanese, John Rain is a professional hit man with a strict set of rules for his targets: no women or children, only principles in a dispute. He specializes in "natural causes" deaths and has just pulled one off while giving us a bit of back story. Interestingly as the story goes on through fascinating twists and turns, we are not asked to find John a sympathetic character. We learn more of his story so that his life's work makes more sense but the character does not work to become likable. I like that since he's a hit man ... seems more "real" that way. Although he seems so American in his thinking that i tend to forget he looks Japanese and sometimes have to remind myself and "fix" my mental picture when that is important to the story, as it sometimes is.

This is the first I’ve read of this author and I love the John Rain character. He’s an assassin with a good heart; something you can only imagine in a novel.

Is it wrong to like the assassin?

I liked John Rain more than I liked the story. Well, no. I liked John Rain and I liked the story. But it took a long time to tell it. Willing to give the next in the series a try.

In "Rainfall", we are introduced to John Rain - a half American, half Japanese assassin. He is a man with morals yet heartless. He is the Samurai of recent times who prefers to be a Ronin . His past is terrible and his future, uncertain. You will enjoy this book for three reasons.

First, John Rain, himself. He is an assassin and not a spy, and there lies the subtle difference. Melancholy is a part of his life and you can actually feel the sadness in his eyes all the time.

Second, an authentic picture of Tokyo. You will explore the places, style and feel of the city which have been brought to life extremely well.

Third, the plot. The corruption, the manipulation, the extraction in high levels of bureaucracy the Rain is thrown into.

Start with this gripping book if you want John Rain as a part of your heart.

The next one to follow up "Rainfall" is "Hard Rain" and I am ordering it immediately after I finish the review.

An enjoyable noir thriller.

Great fast-paced, action-filled thriller with a kick-ass assassin as protagonist and set in Japan - what's not to love? Currently re-reading the first few books of this series before finally moving on to the ones I haven't read yet.

I'm a little torn because 3 stars might indicate I like the book when it would be more accurate to say I don't intensely dislike it, thus 2. There are some interesting parts in this read. Unfortunately between these parts there a long sections that are not only fairly uninteresting but often have little or nothing to do with the story.

There are sections like "the surveillance was going nowhere so..." and we get a section where he sits in a coffee shop and "remembers". We need you see to get an insight into the protagonist and how he became an assassin.

In these flashback/ memories we pretty much find that our protagonist John Rain (hereafter referred to as JR) is scarred by his past. He was scarred by the loss of his father which ended his life of security. This is a little odd because we also find he was scarred before this by the bullies he met (in America and in Japan) who beat him up because he was of mixed parentage (Japanese and American if you hadn't put that together). Later while he's in the service he's scarred by the death of his mother. He is of course scarred by the "loss" of his best friend...who before he was his best friend was one of the bullies who beat JR up. Need I go on? He's scarred by betrayal, he's scarred by disillusionment...this is one scarred dude.

So I put up with the stories and the memories. I put up with the endless lists of Tokyo's streets, cafe's, restaurants, shops and businesses that we get during his "tailing and surveillance exploits". I put up with his internal monologs and soliloquies. I put up with dialogs and conversations that had little or nothing to do with what was supposed to be the stories plot...yes and I put up with his stumbling into a love/romance interest.

The story is slow moving, disjointed and (I don't think) all that well told with only moments of interest that mostly gave me the "might have been" feeling I've found in other books.


So...2 stars. I don't suppose I really hated the book, but I never really found it that interesting.


Just a thought. For a book about a freelance assassin this book has very little action. When the book opens we are told what he's been doing, see him finish the job that sets up the story which is supposed to be more one of intrigue than action. But I don't really think it works on either level. The book ends leaving the feeling that the entire thing was simply a set up for what's to come.

I wish I'd liked it more, but I didn't. I probably won't follow it up.

Having lived in Tokyo I really wanted to enjoy this book and to a certain extent I did. The descriptions of Tokyo were good although I got a bit sick of all the references to the Tokyo Train/Subway system. The explanation of post WWII Japanese politics was interesting although I already knew about the construction industry corruption.

My main gripes with the book were threefold. One - I had no sympathy for the main character ( a trained, cold blooded assassin), two - the love interest and the coincidence which leads to it are completely unbelievable and three - it was a bit silly having a Vietnam vet as a modern day assassin, I mean really how old is this dude Rain supposed to be?!!

**4.5 stars**

This book blew me away.

I’m not fond of assassins as main characters so normally I wouldn’t have picked up this book. But it was on sale at Audible and I liked the narrator so I decided to give it a try. And oh boy, I’m so glad I did.
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The story starts a bit slowly but then it gets tremendously exciting, extremely sad and very thought provoking. Why would a man like John Rain – who not a “bad person” – choose a life like this? The answer is not simple or even logical but it’s heartbreaking. There are no apologies or justifications, just the stark reality of the aftermath of war and how soldiers live with themselves afterwards, exemplified by a phrase that is repeated over and over through the book: “There is no home for us, John. Not after what we’ve done.”

The sense of loneliness and isolation is so palpable, that sometimes I thought John was walking in a bubble where he was able to observe and hear the muffled sounds of the world while living inextricably apart. The descriptions of Tokyo, noir and bright, added to the atmosphere and made the city a character on its own, a witness and sometimes ally that would conceal John in its masses.

Brian Nishii’s narration was simply brilliant. When I learned that only 2 out of the 7 books in this series are narrated by Mr. Nishii, I almost wept. How could anybody else be the voice of John Rain? Not only is Mr. Nishii Japanese he can properly pronounce all the dialogue in that language (and there's a lot in the book) but he also has that cadence in his speech that tells you immediately where he's from. The voices were just adequate but his performance of John Rain was phenomenal. The emotions were just pitch perfect; you could feel the alienation without any overt sentimentality. I'm so in love with this narration that I'll switch to print for every book that he doesn't narrate.

So it goes without saying that I'll be reading the sequel soon and it's a book I completely recommend.