Read this when it first came out and thought is was great. The second read was just as good and Rain is a terrific protagonist. Eisler is at his best with John Rain. The reader is in for a great ride.

Superb company

I listen to the Rain stories while exercising & it makes it go by very quickly.. my favourite character is Dox. He is funny & lovable. These stories are totally entertaining. A different portrayal of spying, wet works, collaboration. & 3 letter agencies

John Rain is doing a job in Manila with his partner, when things go South. Now hunted by the Mossad, as well as the CIA, and his other enemies, Rain must get out from under, sort out his feelings, and finish the job, as he travels through Thailand, and inevitably, back to Japan.

Good stuff. John Rain seems to grow with every novel.

Another amazing story n characters!

Loved the continued soliloquies of John Rain, as he completes the planning n elimination of his targets. Easy to relate to his humanizing emotions, n rippling ramifications of his actions. An engrossing thriller.

Although this was an entertaining book, it fell a bit on the boring side a few times, to me. Rain is an interesting character, complex and ordinary at the same time. As I've missed a few books between this one and the first book, I have a limited assessment of him. The storyline was basically a plausible one and the characters were well written but there was still those boring bits in the telling. After reading this one, I see I'm going to have to go back and pick up at book number two and read forward to this point. I like Rain as a character and with this one, Dox has captured my attention also. I really need to bring myself up to speed on this series.

Better. A nice return to the form of earlier books with some interesting changes and additions (Thailand/Hong Kong, Dox/Delilah). The author's personal convictions still seem to bleed through in some of his characters (hatred of bureaucracy/government oversight, obsession with Israel, etc) but overall it seemed a little more toned down. I was ready to put away this series after this book since it's the last one I physically own but I still might come back to it. The ending leaves enough ambiguities and threads that I'm curious where everyone ends up and this book was a pleasant and quick enough read.

I didn't want to put this book down. John Rain and his missions are damn good. Mr. Eisler keeps the story moving, and it doesn't have to be super action all the time.
John is an assassin for hire. He is now working with Dox, a sniper that helped him in the last adventure. When the hit they are hired to do doesn't work out the way it was planned John and Dox have to try to fix things. However, their employer is not happy, and John finds himself a target. Who can he trust? Can Delilah be trusted? How will he get close to the target again? So much is at stake and John is beginning to question himself and his ability to continue.
I loved the way Mr. Eisler played out the storyline and set up the reader for the next installment in this series. This is a series that definitely should be read in order. I am looking forward to Johns next assignment for sure.

omfg, kept going till this installment but it just gets worse. If they'd sent a pretty broad after this dude with some poison he would be done after 10 pages in the first book. Oh no wait every pretty lady wants to fuck this guy, my bad.... it's like a Japanese harem manga lmfao. Not to mention all the exposition on 'tradecraft' and then the fights where the opponent is rather doll like and allows this small asian dude to do whatever he wants. Shitty books from an American who thinks he's 'cultured' because he has visited some countries as a rich privileged white man. If you need to tell people you were in the CIA...

Eisler changed the names of all his books some twice, but ...

I find it very hard to track them. In each of his books, he has taken time to explain how important to him it was to do this but I'd be surprised if his readers feel the same. I think a brand is a brand and to change it for one's own satisfaction is not taking his audience into account.

"Redemption Gamers" is another excellent installment in the John Rain series by Barry Eisler. This episode has our paid assassin, Rain, struggle with his conscience when he has an opportunity to kill Manny (wanted eliminated by the Israelis) in the untimely and accidental presence of the latter's son. The remainder of the story deals with the aftermath of the botched attempt and Rain's efforts, with the assistance of his partner Dox, to rectify the situation. The book is well-written/crafted, the characters and dialogue credible, and there is plenty of action as Rain navigates perilous circumstances in which he is both hunter and hunted. There is an intriguing twist at the end which, I have no doubt, will lead inexorably to Rain's next mission. I am looking forward to #5 (and several more) in the series...

Book #4 in The John Rain series, sees our titular assassin working for Mossad and being a bit more human. Everything doesn’t go right for him, and he has to trust other people; Dox and Delilah. This book was better than the last one, possibly two, as it had more heart, more emotion, and wasn’t so automatically idealised and ‘yes yes, Rain gets it done and snaps everyone’s necks.’

He travels to Manilla, Bangkok, Hong Kong and Tokyo. Eisler clearly is well travelled and writes as if he knows the places well (like Colin Forbes) and the dialogue is more realistic in this one. I enjoy the soy craft although some of the technical repercussions stuff is a bit slow, and I’ve never understood why characters talk of guns/knives etc using their full spec and brand etc. Wouldn’t you just say “gun” in conversation? Unless you were discussing the merits of different effects of weaponry, likewise clothing and accessories... cars etc. You can say Mercedes, you don’t have to mention the model as well. E-class or whatever, maybe to depict it’s a showy car.

That said, the book was an enjoyable read, a more gripping and emersive story and I’m looking forward to #5.

Also looking forward to the promised (on IMDb) the TV miniseries of this staring Keanu Reeves. Sadly it looks like it’s going to be Americanised (

A John Rain Novel. An excellent, well written novel. I really enjoyed this book and this authors writing style. John Rain is a contract Hitman who has been hired to take out some very important terrorists. Rain fails and now he is the one who is on a hit list. Betrayal and government corruption abound in this action packed novel.tt