Eisler, Barry: Rain Fall

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TWEETABLE REVIEW: 4* 1st in series introduces assassin John Rain, a smart killer w/Vietnam-era demons. Story slowed by background deets. https://www.book-blog.com/2012/07/eisler-barry-rain-fall.html

Rain Fall is Barry Eisler's first novel featuring John Rain, the son of a Japanese father and an American mother who, having never felt at home in either culture, found himself most comfortable when at war. Thirty-five years after Vietnam, Rain remains at war, a modern-day samurai who works as an assassin for hire. He's good at what he does, and both very smart and very careful, specializing in deaths that are made to appear as though from natural causes. This time out, however, the job becomes personal, as Rain unwisely becomes involved with a recent victim's daughter. The book provides a lot of backstory on Rain--the demons that haunt him, the career that makes having intimate relationships an impossibility. Less interesting are Eisler's descriptions of the corruption in Japanese society and the complicated machinations that culminated in Rain's most recent hit for hire. This stuff had my eyes glazing over, but I like the other aspects of the story very much.