A Life Spent Reading

The nice thing about reading Barry Eisler, in addition to the technical writing stuff, all of which he does pretty well, is that he actually knows what he’s talking about. You won’t find Japanese sales clerks being rude to their customers, speaking English like California surfer dudes, or otherwise behaving like Americans with unusually straight black hair. His Asian characters are Asian, his Americans American, his Europeans European. Very refreshing, considering the plethora of otherwise sensible writers who have no fucking clue.

This latest installment in the John Rain series matches the first three for quality and ties up most of the subplots that were introduced in those books. Rain also is developing as a character; there has been a gradual interweaving of humor over the last two books, and it helps to balance things out. Sure, being an professional assassin probably isn’t a barrel of laughs most of the time, but escape reading is escape reading, and breaking the tension here and there is a lot more fun than watching Rain being all angsty over the state of the world. Supporting characters Dox and Delilah both help out in this respect as well.

Bottom line: If you like a good thriller with exotic international settings, this will be right up your alley. Read the first three in the series before trying this one though; it’s fine as a standalone novel, but will give you much more satisfaction if you do.