Works by
Barry Eisler
(Writer)

John Rain Series
Enthusiastic publishers around the world have become enthralled by John Rain, a strikingly fresh new thriller hero and a character destined to be one of the most talked-about of the season. Born of an American mother and a Japanese father, Rain is a businessman based in Tokyo, living a life of meticulously planned anonymity. Trained by the U.S. Special Forces and a veteran of Vietnam, he is a cool, self-contained loner—and he has built a steady business over the past twenty-five years specializing in death by "natural causes." He is also a man struggling with his own divided nature: Japanese/American; soldier/assassin; samurai/ronin.

1. Rain Fall (Rain Fall, UK) (2002)
   From its richly atmospheric and ominous opening pages—in which we witness the death of a stranger in a crowded subway car—Rain's carefully ordered world begins to unravel. Unknown agents from within and without the international intelligence communities have been circling him for years and, having connected him to the subway job, now have the scent they have been seeking. At the same time, Rain is drawn outside his private world by an alluring jazz pianist, the dead man's daughter, who is the key to the very secrets that her father died trying to reveal.

2. Hard Rain (aka Blood from Blood in UK) (2003)
   After killing a CIA officer who had hunted him halfway around the globe, Rain plans his own disappearance, hoping to find the peace that has eluded him. But then his old nemesis from the Japanese FBI comes to him with one last “favor:” find and eliminate a killer at large, a creature without compassion or conscience.

   It’s soon clear that it’s not just Japan’s fragile balance of political power that’s threatened, but also the lives of Rain’s few friends, including that of a love from his past. To protect them, Rain must pursue his lethal quarry into the heart of a war between the CIA and the Japanese mafia, where the distinctions between friend and foe and truth and deceit are as murky as the rain-slicked streets of Tokyo.

3. Rain Storm (aka Choke Point in UK) (2004)
   In Rain Storm (Choke Point, UK), Rain has fled to Brazil to escape the killing business and the enemies who have been encircling him. But his knack for making death seem to have been of "natural causes" and his ability to operate unnoticed in Asia continue to create unwelcome demand for his services. His old employer, the CIA, persuades him to take on a high-risk assignment: a ruthless arms dealer supplying criminal groups throughout Southeast Asia.
   
   The upside? Financial, of course, along with the continued chimera of moral redemption. But first, Rain must survive the downside: a second assassin homing in on the target; the target's consort-an alluring woman named Delilah with an agenda of her own; and the possibility that the entire mission is nothing but an elaborate setup. From the gorgeous beaches of Rio to the glitzy casinos of Macao to the gritty back streets of Hong Kong and Kowloon, Rain becomes a reluctant player in an international game far deadlier and more insidious than he has ever encountered before.

4. Killing Rain (aka One Last Kill, UK) (2005)
   In Killing Rain (One Last Kill, UK), Rain has a new employer, the Mossad, which wants him to fix a “problem” in Manila; and a new partner, Dox, whose good-ol’ boy persona masks a sniper as deadly as Rain himself. He also has a new hope: that by using his talents in the service of something good, he might atone for all the lives he has already taken. But when Rain’s conscience causes him to botch an assignment, he finds out that the Mossad’s next assignment is himself. And when Delilah, the alluring Israeli agent he once fought and then loved, reappears in his life, is she there to help him – or to finish him off?

5. The Last Assassin (The Last Assassin, UK) (2006) -- Nominated 2006 Gumshoe award for Best Thriller
   When John Rain learns that his former lover, Midori, has been raising their child in New York, Rain senses a chance for reconciliation, perhaps even for redemption.
   
   But Midori and the child are being watched by Rain's enemies, and Rain's sudden appearance puts them in terrible danger. To save them, Rain is forced to use the same deadly talents he had been hoping to leave behind. With the help of Tatsu, his friend and nemesis in the Japanese FBI; and Dox, the ex-marine sniper whose good ol' boy persona masks a killer as deadly as Rain himself, Rain races against time to bring his enemies into the open and eliminate them forever. But to finish the job, he'll need one more ally: Israeli intelligence agent Delilah, a woman for whom Rain's hopes with Midori represent an altogether different kind of threat...

6. Requiem for an Assassin (2007)
   Hunted and finally cornered, John Rain faces his deadliest enemy ever: himself.
   
   For John Rain, getting out of the life was never going to be easy. But with a new identity in Paris, and the help of his lover, Mossad agent Delilah, he was beginning to leave the killing business behind.
   
   And then he receives a message from rogue CIA operative Jim Hilger: we have your friend Dox. Do as we tell you, or the former Marine sniper dies.
   
   For a professional like Rain, the choice ought to be easy: do the job—a series of three hits—and save his friend and partner. But how does Rain know Hilger won't kill Dox anyway, once the assignment is complete? How does he know that each of the hits isn't simultaneously a setup for Rain himself? Most of all, how can he control the killing rage Hilger's lethal game of extortion reignites inside him?
   
   From the deceptively tranquil beaches of Bali, to the backstreets and boulevards of Paris, to the urban canyons of Silicon Valley and New York and the old killing fields of Vietnam, Rain must grapple with his age, his enemies, and, most of all, with the killer inside himself in a battle that not even Rain can hope to survive intact.