The Last Assassin

emotional encounter with fatherhood somehow merge seamlessly onto the narrative, perhaps even to the point of enhancing it.”
    — The Japan Times
    Killing Rain
    “Eisler unspools a plot full of warring secret government connections, cool spy paraphernalia, and vivid martial-arts sequences…exhilarating.”
    — Entertainment Weekly
    “Steeped in exotic locales, charged with spasms of violence…unique and entertaining.”
    — Rocky Mountain News
    “High-octane action.”
    — Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel
    “Pulse-pounding…. Rain should have a bright, bloody, nerve-racking future.”
    — Lansing State Journal
    “Freelance assassin Rain, now an established presence on the thriller scene, confronts both menace and morality…plenty of good action…a thriller as straight as an arrow…thankfully, expect more Rain.”
    — Kirkus Reviews
    “Plenty of thrills and tense moments…a satisfying step forward for one of the genre’s most gifted writers.”
    — The Examiner (Washington, D.C.)
    Rain Storm
    “If Quentin Tarantino ever got to take a crack at the James Bond franchise, chances are the resulting film would resemble one of Eisler’s novels about John Rain.”
    — Entertainment Weekly
    “[A] superb thriller…an ultracool assassin.”
    — New York Daily News
    “Eisler…is out to redefine what an international thriller can be.”
    — The News-Press (Fort Myers, FL)
    “A propulsive thriller plot…plausible, au courant, and creepy.”
    — Kirkus Reviews
    “What truly sets Eisler’s series apart is its near total absence of formula and stereotype. Rain is a wholly original, cliché-free character operating in a world created only for him, serving as both his folly and his foil.”
    — Publishers Weekly
    “The Rain series keeps on getting better. For espionage fans who favor adventure over ambiguity.”
    — Booklist
    Hard Rain
    “Entertaining and suspenseful enough to keep you turning the pages as fast as your eyes can follow…. He does a superlative job of making his story seem real.”
    — Chicago Sun-Times
    “Action scenes that could make John Woo drool.”
    — Entertainment Weekly
    “[A] relentlessly likable protagonist.”
    — San Francisco Chronicle
    “Just plain fun.”
    — Rocky Mountain News
    “Yakuza gangsters, ruthless bureaucrats, and shifty CIA agents—in a complex, suspenseful yarn.”
    — Phoenix News Times
    “Captivating…. The nightscape of Tokyo is painted in beautifully dark tones…a fascinating, touching, and wholly believable character.”
    — Publishers Weekly
    Rain Fall
A Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year
    “It’s got it all: dazzling plot, deft characterization, beaucoup originality. You should dig it.”
    —James Ellroy
    “Terrific…possibly the best cool-killer novel since The Eiger Sanction. ”
    — San Francisco Chronicle
    “A crackling good yarn, well-written, deftly plotted, and surprisingly appealing.”
    — The Boston Globe
    “Fast-paced…. Readers will warm to Eisler’s ruthless protagonist…quite the accomplishment.”
    — New York Daily News
    “Rain is a definite three-dimensional hit man hero…compelling.”
    — The Tampa Tribune
    “A brisk page-turner with some great plot twists and reversals.”
    — Palo Alto Weekly
    “Rich atmosphere and believable politics…pleasantly fast and polished, in the John Sandford style.”
    — Kirkus Reviews

BOOKS BY BARRY EISLER
    Rain Fall
    Hard Rain
    Rain Storm
    Killing Rain

For my brother and sister,

Alan and Judith

1
    I ’ VE NEVER LIKED doing a job in a new place. You don’t know how to get in and out undetected, you don’t know what tools you’ll need to access the target, you don’t know where you’ll stick out and where you’ll be able to fade into the background or disappear in a crowd.
    To compensate, I start by studying the area from afar, move in only when I’ve learned as much as possible, and always arrive early enough to become familiar with the local terrain before it’s time to act. Tactics like these have kept me alive, and even reasonably prosperous, during more than a quarter century of doing the thing I’ve always been best at.
    But this time the preparation was reflex, not necessity. I wasn’t on a job, for one thing; I was done with the life. Or almost done. There was one last thing, a big one, but I didn’t want to face that just yet. Barcelona was supposed to be an interlude: pleasure, not business, and it was disturbing that some part of my