Mark Rubinstein's Blog - Posts Tagged "barry-eisler"
Barry Eisler's John Rain Thrillers - The Detachment
I’ve read all the John Rain thrillers over the last few years. They are extremely engrossing. The details of Tokyo and Japanese culture are incredible. Eisler paints pictures of the city and other locales (Europe and the United States) in such a colorful way, it makes you feel you’re actually there.
His descriptions of John Rain’s precautionary methods, his shadowy lifestyle, and how Rain carries out his killing assignments are chilling, ingenious, and believable. His relationships with CIA rogues, renegades, and other assassins are drawn with skill and complexity.
Even more complicated are John Rain’s relationships with his lover Midori and with his Mossad agent-lover, Delilah.
In these novels, Eisler got me to experience something I wasn’t certain could happen: I cared deeply about a paid assassin who is a loner and a man without a country and seemingly without a conscience.
I recently read The Detachment, the latest John Rain novel, and Eisler managed to keep up the same level of tension and suspense as in the previous stories.
-- Mark Rubinstein, author, Mad Dog House (October 2012)
The Detachment
His descriptions of John Rain’s precautionary methods, his shadowy lifestyle, and how Rain carries out his killing assignments are chilling, ingenious, and believable. His relationships with CIA rogues, renegades, and other assassins are drawn with skill and complexity.
Even more complicated are John Rain’s relationships with his lover Midori and with his Mossad agent-lover, Delilah.
In these novels, Eisler got me to experience something I wasn’t certain could happen: I cared deeply about a paid assassin who is a loner and a man without a country and seemingly without a conscience.
I recently read The Detachment, the latest John Rain novel, and Eisler managed to keep up the same level of tension and suspense as in the previous stories.
-- Mark Rubinstein, author, Mad Dog House (October 2012)
The Detachment
The Khmer Kill: A Dox Short Story
This is the first short story by Barry Eisler I've read. Dox, who has appeared in other novels, is the protagonist. At the outset, you know something may be wrong with the assignment Dox is given: to assassinate a man involved in human trafficking in Cambodia.
Once again, Eisler captures the atmospheric reality of the locale. And he keeps the tension going as Dox suspects the assignment is not typical. Dox gets involved with a young, lovely Cambodian student, and has qualms about the relationship keep deepening since he will be leaving in a few days.
And when it comes to the kill, Dox turns out to be a man of deep moral conviction, despite the nature of his profession. Five stars out of five!
Once again, Eisler captures the atmospheric reality of the locale. And he keeps the tension going as Dox suspects the assignment is not typical. Dox gets involved with a young, lovely Cambodian student, and has qualms about the relationship keep deepening since he will be leaving in a few days.
And when it comes to the kill, Dox turns out to be a man of deep moral conviction, despite the nature of his profession. Five stars out of five!
