Fran’s review

Another great read! John Rain’s character just keeps evolving. He is such a complicated man, solitary yet slowly opening himself to friendships. The Dox character is wonderful. Keep writing more Rain books, please.

Not one of his better books. Too much dialogue and not enough action. I liked Rain better when he hid his emotions. I feel like he's getting sentimental. Hopefully the next book in this series picks back up.

I like the way the characters are developing. The addition of a partner has changed the style a bit - stopping it from getting same old, same old. John's increasing self doubt is credible and though you can see it will probably eventually lead to redemption I doubt if it will happen any time soon. I feel compelled to finish the series.

Working my way through the John Rain series and I'm enjoying it. Rain is such a serious character that it's nice to have Dox lighten things up occasionally and other recurring characters add dimension to the world he inhabits. It's not absolutely necessary to read the series from the beginning, but there are some through-lines that reference events in earlier books (and set the foundation for payoffs in subsequent books).

A good exciting book. Well written. Our main character is getting older maybe and more sentimental. And so he freezes at one point when he sees his marks son and he couldn't go through with it which kind of ruined stuff. But dox is an interesting character who annoys you to know and but he's very effective

Read this as 'One Last Kill' and it's fantastic.

Intense

I first read The Killer Collective and then decided to go to the beginning. I actually enjoy that my hero is victorious. I don’t know if I could handle them being tortured. Love getting to know Dox.

Historical-referenced spy thriller (vs a historical fiction, IMHO). Best book I've read in a few months. The plot is complex but easy to follow with just enough characters to keep it interesting but not so many that I can't keep them straight.

It didn’t really take me over a week to finish this. I read the beginning and then stopped for other forms of entertainment last weekend, and for the work week to ensure I got decent sleep. I picked it back up again yesterday.

John Rain is growing and changing and it’s a joy to read. I read a lot of young adult fiction, so it’s nice to have a fully mature, adult character who is growing and changing…sure he makes mistakes and flounders sometimes, and questions himself as we all do when expanding our comfort zones, but at his core he knows who he is and what his skills are and he trusts his own self knowledge and perceptions. It’s easier learning and growing as we get older because there’s already so much to draw on. Nevertheless, some of us lose the flexibility it takes to grow; the willingness to take a one down position as “student” or “learner”, or the ego strength to admit we don’t know and to ask for help or correction. In those ways learning comes more easily to the young who don’t have decades of comfort with being seen as experts to get in their way. It’s such a pleasure in this book to watch Rain grow and accept input from others while still maintaining his confidence in his areas of expertise.

Another great John Rain book!

Excellent book on the series. Good tension and exciting storyline made this an bc enjoyable read. Building on the overall John Rain storyline and seeing the characters develop is very cool. I love how each story build on the previous stories. Great read.

This was an "interesting" installment with some elements that didn't work for me (and thus why I'm giving it a 2-star rating) and other elements that I loved (and were more consistent with the first three books). Let's start with the not so good. The pacing of this story was slow at times. While I don't need action all of the time, I found myself thinking "where is this going?" a bit more than I'd like. Also, while I like the characters Delilah and Dox, this is the first book in which they seemed far more integrated. This felt like a bit of a departure from the lone assassin that we'd gotten to know (and love) in the first couple of books. My sense is that this was a transitional story to tee up the future books down a new path/arc. I'm still keen to continue with the story and will start the next book momentarily.

On what worked well, I must comment on the detail and realism in the stories. I'm no assassin or spec ops operator (surprise, surprise), so I can't comment on the tactics, although I'm fully convinced of it's accuracy. Hahahah. I have studied Japanese and lived there. The way Eisler describes Japanese culture, food, etc. is spot on - at least from my experience as a gaijin. I'm doing this series as an audio so it's actually quite fun to hear (and understand) the Japanese dialogue. I've also lived in Hong Kong for over 7 years. His descriptions of the city are fabulous. I've been to the China Club and nearly all of the other areas of the city he describes and I love the nostalgia it evokes hearing about John's adventures.

While I thought this book was a mixed bag, I still highly recommend the series.

Schaduwleven is op zich een prima geschreven boek en het plot is best goed, maar die gesprekken. De gesprekken duren maar voort en er lijkt geen eind aan te komen.