John Rain - half-Japanese, half-American, raised in both countries but at home in neither - is trying to leave his life as a freelance assassin. After killing a CIA officer who hunted him halfway around the globe, Rain goes underground, hoping to find the peace that has eluded him. But then Tatsu, his old nemesis from the Japanese FBI, comes to him with one last job: to find and eliminate a killer at large, a creature with neither compassion nor compunction, whose activities could tip the balance of power in Japan's corrupt politics and who seems to have designs on Rain's few friends. To protect them, Rain will have to pursue his most dangerous quarry yet through the crosshairs of the CIA and the Japanese mafia, where the differences between friend and foe and truth and deceit are as murky as the rain-slicked streets of Tokyo.

John Rain, assassin extraordinaire, is back on the job, despite his desire to begin a new life. Rain is fluent in Japanese, and his half-Japanese, half-American background, with some help from plastic surgery, allows him to pass as Japanese in this multilayered plot involving Japanese mobsters, politicians, and Japan's equivalent of the FBI. Maintaining suspense and tension throughout, Dick Hill manages to capture a rhythm of speech that mirrors Japanese, lending authentic voices to the characters. He moves easily between English and Japanese, reading in a natural style. Modulating well and transitioning smoothly to the description between the action sequences, Hill moves into dramatic mode only when appropriate. It takes some attentiveness to sort out who is who among the many Japanese characters and what's going on, but in the end the listener is rewarded by a very good performance. S.S.R. (c) AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine

 

Barry Eisler, author of the acclaimed Rain Fall, is an American lawyer who has lived and worked extensively in Japan.

Hard Rain by Barry Eisler
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