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Read A Clean Kill In Tokyo (2002)

A Clean Kill in Tokyo (2002)

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3.92 of 5 Votes: 3
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barry eisler

A Clean Kill In Tokyo (2002) - Plot & Excerpts

The book Rain Fall by Barry Eisler is 363 pages, published in 2002 by Penguin Books Ltd. The genre is a little bit of mystery, thriller, romance, and realistic fiction. The story is a first person tale of John Rain. He's an ex-marine from the Vietnam era and a hit man who specializes in assassinations that look natural. What starts as a routine kill ends up in complete chaos. Rain falls in love with the daughter of his target and must face old enemies that are trying to control him. The book really focuses on the changes in Rain and how these changes came to be.tRain's character begins his journey when he's born. With one parent Japanese and one American, Rain never felt like he had a true home. This lead to him becoming an outcast and caused him to develop a quiet, secretive demeanor. He was bullied constantly and learned to take care of himself. Rain's life took a huge twist when he met Jimmy (A.K.A Crazy Jake). Rain and Jimmy became best friends and joined the American army where they fought in Vietnam. Rain finally feels accepted and sticks with Jimmy for years. The friendship takes a turn for the worse when Jimmy abandons the army and creates his own private force. The corrupt and traitorous army officer Holtzer sends Rain on a mission to kill Jimmy. Rain kills Jimmy and leaves Vietnam. He went there excited to fit in and left an outcast once again. This is all back-story that the book provides. The setting throughout most of the book is modern day Japan. Rain is now a hit man and is tasked to kill a corrupt politician. He kills the man and makes it seem like a heart attack. Later that day he meets Midori, the daughter of the politician. Due to Rain's secretive nature, he's unwilling to disclose anything personal but finds himself having feelings for her. These feelings allow him to open up to her like no one else. When Rain's employer sets his sights on Midori's life, Rain jumps into action. Midori and he go into hiding. Rain falls in love with her and she with him. He opens up to her and tells her all about Jimmy and the terrible things he's done. Midori really connects with him and a strong bond is created. Midori is being hunted because her father had a disk that contained discriminating information on the Yazuka leader, Yamaoto. Holtzer is working with Yamaoto and is in charge of killing Rain and retrieving the disk. Rain gets the disk and works to get it to the head of police, Tatsu. He eventually succeeds and Holtzer resigns from his CIA position. Unfortunately, to protect Midori, Tatsu tells her that Rain is dead. Rain is overwhelmed with despair at losing Midori and anger at Holtzer's lack of punishment. He takes justice into his own hands and kills Holtzer. It was a wild moment on his part. It's kind of like Yin and Yang. Midori was his Yin, his soft side. Holtzer was his Yang, violent side. When he lost his Yin, he had no choice but to balance it out and kill the Yang. It was all about emotional balance. Rain's life has never been easy. As a kid he was excluded, as a young adult he had to kill his best friend and countless others, and as an adult he lost his love and killed dozens more. Midori and Jimmy were the only stable things in Rain's life and each loss shook him to the core. The book ends here so it's unsure how he moves on.tRain Fall is an amazing thriller full of intense action, a gripping story, and relatable characters. Many will come for the action but will stay for the intense tale it weaves. Rain Fall is an extremely good thriller that deserves to be read by anyone craving action or suspense.

(Audible download) According to the author's website, Eisler has a black belt (it shows in the books, Rain's fights are described in loving detail by judo and karate movement name), worked for the CIA (and must not like most of them, for , in this first of the series at least, the CIA does not come off well) and worked in Japan for several years (and has high respect for Japanese customs.)One always feels guilty reading (listening, actually) to a book like this for the hero is just about as anti-social as one gets. Rain is half Japanese/half American with a seemingly sordid past as a special operations group member in Vietnam. Haunted by what he had to do there, he has become a specialist in making people die from natural causes. Most are politicians or bankers or a person who someone else has determined must die, and Rain does it really well. It's really hard to discuss any of the plot of this book without stumbling through numerous plot spoilers. Rain has been burned so many times by the traditional forces of "good" that he has been forced to adopt his own code of morality and live in the shadows. Nothing, nothing, is as it seems and Rain learns he has been manipulated again by those he had come to despise.I suggest, if possible, reading this one first in the series, as it sets the stage for Rain later. Read brilliantly by Brian Nishii. The Japanese names just roll off his tongue and make it even more authentic. There's nothing worse than a reader who doesn't pronounce names correctly. I once heard Dick Hill, otherwise one of my favorite readers, pronounce Schuylkill River as "skykill" instead of "schoolkill" which as anyone who has been within 400 miles of Philadelphia knows is the native way to pronounce it. Drove me crazy the entire book.I've heard some people use Eisler's view of Japan to assume that the LDP is as corrupt as Eisler suggests and that one can learn about Japanese society from reading the Rain titles. Although I know virtually nothing about Japan, my natural skepticism would suggest being careful in drawing such conclusions. My only criticism would be that Rain's ability to take on 3 or 4 antagonists at once, beating them all, buggers the imagination. Then again, it's fiction.

What do You think about A Clean Kill In Tokyo (2002)?

A pretty good mystery & thriller, although there's a bit too much angst for me. Reminds me of David Morrell's characters a lot in that way. Good, but not inhumanely so. Rain gets his ass handed to him occasionally & there's nothing magical about his situations or solutions. Good logic. There weren't any of the huge plot holes that so often accompany books of this sort. Also, it's the start of a pretty good series. I actually read the 3d book first & didn't have any trouble going back to this one or enjoying that one.
—Jim

Having previously read a mid-series book, it was a relief to go back to the start. My first experience of John Rain in Extremis showed me a rather one dimensional man - a hired killer, cold and efficient but not much else. However, this book brings the character alive, drawing out his background and the key events that shaped the man. The first half of the book is my favourite part as Rain shows himself to be a rather complex dude with a lot to offer, over and above his propensity to induce ‘the big sleep’ - to order and in a way likely to be deemed death by natural causes.The descriptions of Rain’s home turf in Tokyo and his various haunts and pleasures (jazz, whiskey and women) are excellent. Conversations are well drawn and characters development is first class. I really wouldn't have minded if the book had focused wholly on these elements, particularly his burgeoning relationship with young jazz pianist, Midori. I'm sure an excellent book – albeit a different type of book – could have been developed from these early threads. Would Rain be worth reading about without the action man antics? I think so.Once the action starts this book feels much more like my first experience of the series, although these sequences don't feel quite so clinical, so mechanical and are probably all the better for that. The story also gets much more complex, as additional characters and various twists and turns are introduced. It’s not that the second half of the book is unsatisfying, it’s just that - for me - it doesn't quite match up to what preceded it.I know that these thoughts won't match everyone's experience of this book. Simply put, I think it's that although I do like action packed thrillers I prefer the human elements of these stories. And the human elements here are very good indeed. Overall, I really enjoyed meeting John Rain again and I’ll definitely be signing up for the next episode.
—Andrew Smith

#25 - 2010.Recommended by Matt. American born, half-Japanese, John Rain is a professional hit man with a strict set of rules for his targets: no women or children, only principles in a dispute. He specializes in "natural causes" deaths and has just pulled one off while giving us a bit of back story. Interestingly as the story goes on through fascinating twists and turns, we are not asked to find John a sympathetic character. We learn more of his story so that his life's work makes more sense but the character does not work to become likable. I like that since he's a hit man ... seems more "real" that way. Although he seems so American in his thinking that i tend to forget he looks Japanese and sometimes have to remind myself and "fix" my mental picture when that is important to the story, as it sometimes is.
—Julie Davis

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