This review was originally posted on  Books of My Heart
 



n  The purpose of Thrifty Thursday is to read a book which was free (at some point).n
Kindle freebie on April 12, 2013  (currently $7.99 at Amazon and Barnes & Noble as of writing this post)
Overall rating 3.96 with 12,503 ratings and 773 reviews
 

 



A Clean Kill in Tokyo is a freebie I have had quite awhile but it came up, I think because it is in Kindle Unlimited.  It is also available with Whispersync for $1.99, with the author as the narrator.  If I had realized I might have listened but then it wouldn't qualify for my Thrifty Thursday designation so maybe not.

I liked the story and may read on in this n  n    John Rain series.n  n It's written about 20 years ago, but doesn't hold up too badly. It's definitely written in guy mode. more action and plot, somewhat less emotion.  The writing was well done with the world and the characters. I enjoyed the Tokyo setting.  It's dark and gritty; it is about an assassin who served in the Vietnam War. It's not unlike the new movie Triple Frontier - what do guys do with that skill set once the war ends?

I like that John is smart and skilled. It's a bit crazy to think he survives everything which happens.  John has his personal issues, but he is not without feelings or compassion.  And I have to like a guy who prefers jazz.

The plot is interesting because John's regular life has been cruising along and now it's shot to hell. The underlying cause is the corruption of the Japanese government. This is fiction, but it is intriguing to think about how much of this is realistic with the government, the mob gangs and politics.

 



These are only Kindle freebies I get, or ones through author newsletters which anyone can sign up and get for free. I don't include things like Kindle Unlimited or Prime Free Reading (I do have it). Both Tantor and Audible have occasional free audios (to anyone) and I do include those.  Since I one-click on 1-2 freebies a day or probably at least 5 a week, I came up with this feature to make sure I start reading them.

So I have thought about doing a Thrifty Thursday Challenge someday. For now,  what I think would be fun is if you have read and reviewed  a freebie, link up to your review (Goodreads, blog, facebook or wherever) below.



Add your review link here: 

 
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Cliché and formulaic.
Horrible dialogue. Awkward and artificial romance. One dimensional characters: a stereotypical "hacker" character out of a 90s movie, a cardboard cutout love interest who becomes unbelievably obedient to the main character, John Rain, a handsome assassin with comically godlike fighting abilities and a troubled past. Also, some evil Yakuza and CIA guys.
I never write reviews on here, but this book has almost completely positive ones and I felt the need to disagree. I don't know why I read this. I don't hate all pulp thrillers, I remember enjoying Ludlum novels.

All assassin novels are compared against The Day of the Jackal or Shibumi. And while this one didn't quite reach the 5 star bar, I'll continue the series.

#1 in John Rain series.

John Rain is a half-America, half-Japanese Viet Nam veteran now living in Tokyo as a freelance assassin. After a contract on the Tokyo subway, he finds his victim had a disk sought by almost everyone. He meets Midori, the victim's daughter, a jazz pianist, and finds she is in danger because the bad guys assume she has the disk. Exotic locale and wheels within wheels.

Cliché and formulaic.
Horrible dialogue. Awkward and artificial romance. One dimensional characters: a stereotypical "hacker" character out of a 90s movie, a cardboard cutout love interest who becomes unbelievably obedient to the main character, John Rain, a handsome assassin with comically godlike fighting abilities and a troubled past. Also, some evil Yakuza and CIA guys.
I never write reviews on here, but this book has almost completely positive ones and I felt the need to disagree. I don't know why I read this. I don't hate all pulp thrillers, I remember enjoying Ludlum novels.

The 1st John Rain book and one of the best. I loved the excellent way this series is written and I really can get into the character of Rain. A very complicated guy with his own set of rules to being an assassin.

This is my first "John Rain" novel and I must admit, I liked it enough to read more! The 'damaged but honorable' lone-hero style reminds me a lot of Lee Child's "Reacher" series, but without all the sentence fragments (thankfully)! Plus,I love anything that deals with culture and identity, and Rain's Japanese/American duality adds a dimension to him which causes a certain amount of unrest, and I found that really interesting. Also, the story itself moved at a good, quick pace, and held my attention to the very end. Recommended.

Just ok.

It is easy to tell this is a first novel. This book needs to be edited. This is a 175 book stretched to 252 pages.

The lengthy conversations are extremely boring, repetitive and unnecessary.

The story about the main character being hazed for being an American and Japanese mix and his growing up is repeated more than once. The more something is repeated it makes the reader doubt the truth of it. People who Lie tend to go on and on about it. The way this is handled makes it feel like the main character has a huge chip on his shoulder and he is looking for confrontations.

A Clean Kill in Tokyo (formerly published as Rain Fall) is the first book in the John Rain series, about an ex-military assassin who is half American and half Japanese. I had met Rain before, peripherally, in the Livia Lone & Killer Collective books, and been intending to check this earlier series out. Finding books 2 and 4 going cheap at a market was the prompt I needed to source Book 1, so used an Audible credit to download the audiobook, which we listened to on a return trip to the Lake. I enjoyed this - particularly the novelty of the Japanese setting, and will happily continue the series.

John Rain specialises in killings for hire that look like the victim died of natural causes. Haunted by his experiences in the Vietnam war, he has a strict code of who he will and won’t target. When he witnesses his latest victim, a corrupt politician, being frisked by a Westerner on the subway as he lies dying, he senses something is amiss. Looking further into the case, Rain gets close to the man’s daughter, a beautiful jazz pianist, and uncovers evidence which threatens powerful people at the heart of the Japanese government. Now the hunter is the hunted, and only exposing the truth can save them both.

This was first published in 2002 but holds up pretty well from a technology and geopolitical point of view. The audiobook is read by the author himself, who has an attractive voice that was easy to listen to, although considering he’s relating a first person past story where most of the dialogue would’ve been in Japanese, he doesn’t sound at all how I would expect Rain to speak.
There’s plenty of action and fight scenes which are fluidly described so I could actually picture them happening - Eisler does this better than the average thriller writer, and it was easy to keep track of what was happening throughout. Rain is rather a cold fish but as we learn his background we understand why he’s ended up that way.

I thought I read that these books were being turned into a TV series featuring Keanu Reeves, but nothing came of it, then discovered that a movie was made of this one in 2009, but even Gary Oldman as Holtzer couldn’t save it from a straight to DVD release!

Eisler is apparently a former CIA operative
and Silicon Valley lawyer. He also writes thrillers. This book is about
John Rain, who is similar to Jason Bourne, a highly trained assassin.
Rain is half Japanese and half American and lived in both worlds. He is
a former Vietnam War commando. He is haunted by his past and by
his present. He does murder for hire and his murders look like natural
or accidental deaths. All or almost all of the action takes places in
Tokyo and Eisler does a super job of describing the city, the customs,
the attitude. It is a fast paced thriller with plenty of fights and intrigue.

Hardcore action all the way!

The city is Tokyo, where government, yakuza and construction industry leaders are knit together in a web of corruption. Central character John Rain - a tough guy with scruples - finds himself snared in the deadly tangle, and struggles to understand why his life is suddenly turned upside down. Eisler's novel is scrupulously researched, expertly plotted, generous in detail and rich in color. He has created a torrent of action that transported this reader from cover to cover with timeless celerity.