A Lonely Resurrection

The second John Rain felt very mechanical to me. I would have thought this was the sixth or seventh book in the series, a point where the original direction of the series was ending as we transition to a new direction, instead it is the second in the series but probably serves the same purpose.

We start with another assassination, this time a mid-level gangster. While the assassination was successful, looking at it objectively the likelihood of success was so small an assassin would have figured out an alternative plan. After the assassination we get the back story of what John has been doing since the last book. He has moved to Osaka and is working on retiring, when an old acquaintance tracks him down requesting he kill the gangster. Frequently in the first book and second book, Barry Eisler, provides detailed description of the methods John employs to avoid detection, and yet throughout the second book people, Cops, Gangsters, Ex-Girlfriends, etc., keep finding John without much problem.

There are two story arcs in this book. First Harry, the ex-NSA super hacker from the first book, has a new girlfriend. John finds this suspicious, so he begins to back track who this girl is, why is she interested in Harry, or is she just using Harry to get to John. The second arc is about another gangster/killer related to the gangster John assassinated, who John’s acquaintance wants him to investigate and potentially kill. Since this gangster seems to have a relationship to Harry’s new girlfriend it provides another avenue of investigation into Harry's girlfriend, so John accepts the request.

While back tracking Harry’s new girlfriend John meets a half Brazilian, half Japanese exotic dancer. One thing leads to another and the end result is they have the most boring sex I have ever read.

By the end of the book, we have many more bodies. John's technical skills, which in the first book seemed believable, are sub-par in the second. Even with his anti-surveillance techniques, people find him. Avenues of attack which are obvious, John didn’t see coming and made an effort to minimize his exposure.

As I said originally this seemed like a transition book, so maybe book three will be a new direction for John.