RAIN FALL

Written By Barry Eisler & Reviewed by The Green Vegetable

This book came highly recommended.  John Rain is widely recognized as a member of the espionage pantheon, with the likes of Bond, Smiley, Quiller, Gentry, and many others.  Like any successful spy novel franchise, there is a distinct “competitive advantage” that the protagonist employs that sets him or her apart from all of the characters within their crucible as well as the other spies on the bookshelf.  In Rain’s case, it is without question SDR aka Surveillance Detection Routes. 

Our hero John Rain is an assassin, and works with Harry. They’re following a Japanese fella, Rain attaches a magnet to the back of his suit and corrupts the pacemaker from his own PDA, killing Kawamura on the subway. Some rando is right there as he died, appearing as a pickpocket but most likely not, on account of being the lone (and accordingly quite memorable) white dude. Harry does not know that John Rain is an assassin and assumes he is only PI.

Harry and John meet and Harry informs him that their target died and there was a break in at his apartment during the funeral. Criminal report was filed by Tatsu, a former colleague of Rain’s in Vietnam. Seems that Keisatsucho, Japanese FBI, is following this murder. Rain goes to a jazz club owned by an old friend that invited him. Kawamura is the father of the singer Midoro. Rain attempts to make small talk with her but is dismissed. The rando that searched the corpse walks in, he is a western journalist according to the club owner. A stranger and another, Telephone Man, enter and surveil. Rain ultimately tails phone man, as he appears to be tailing the stranger and not interested in the singer. Rain tails them to the target’s apartment before phone man gets picked up by a biker. Rain buys Midoro a CD and then goes home before arranging to meet Harry for lunch for soba. He asks Harry to learn more about the girl, surmising that the man over Kawamura’s corpse was looking for something, hence why he probably tossed the apartment during the funeral and is now tailing Midoro with the assumption that she now possesses whatever he was looking for on Kawamura.

Harry gives Rain Midoro’s address and Rain arranges an accidental meetup. He asks her for coffee in order to probe about her dad. She doesn’t give much and Rain backs off before she invites him to see her play jazz that Friday. Rain opts to go to judo dojo instead of the club because of his feelings for her. He meets an anti USA conservative there that spars with him, and is quite skilled. After five rounds they make small talk about the flawed USA and the innocent Japanese. The stranger says I hope we meet again and references a private dojo he trains at.

Rain rides the train the next few days, encountering a man that is suspicious. He then receives a call from Benny - not thru the traditional channel - and is offered the contract for Midori. Must be a connection with Bulfinch the reporter, or telephone man told his boss that Kawamura must’ve passed intel to her. Rain watches her perform at the Blue Note, then gets drinks after with the band. He notices a bland man tailing them and ultimately kills the guy in a bar bathroom and steals the man’s surveillance camera off him. Rain prys unsuccessfully at Midori about her dead dad and then walks her home. After dropping her off, he spies and sees three men ambush her. They want whatever her father gave her and attempt to kidnap before Rain steps in, disabling all three. Rain and Midori hide at a love motel where she tells him that her dad contacted her to confess about his corruption with construction and yakuza but never gives her anything before dying. Rain leaves her in the morning to detective. He calls his own phone, equipped as a speakerphone bug and deduces that two people are waiting in his apartment. He figures out that one is Benny his contact, working for CIA to retrieve that disc. Rain isolated and confronts him, learning Bill Holtzer, an old adversary from Vietnam, is behind this. Rain kills Benny then kills the other man, who was hired by the Japan CIA equivalent. He brings their cells back to Midori. They argue about what she may know then hump. Rain tells her of atrocities he committed in Vietnam after waking from a bad dream. Rain gets her to call Bulfinch and arrange a meeting. Rain meets him instead before all three convene and discuss her dad.

Bulfinch had been setting up the whistle blowing for months and the day on the subway was supposed to be the hand off. The dad had nothing on his person, so Rain deduces the cd is nearby, before finding it at a local fruit store. Rain receives a page from Holtzer requesting a meet. Rain arranges an immediate one for safety, but is still followed by Holtzer’s goons. Rain and Holtzer share a cab where Holtzer tells Rain that half his contracts over the years came from Holtzer. He also knows Rain killed the dad and wants to bring in Rain for questioning. Rain chokes out Holtzer, then bolts from the cab, losing the goons. Rain and Harry meet to discuss the disc. It is encrypted with music so Midori is needed despite Rain’s protest. And it can’t be copied, adding value. Harry explains Midori’s grandfather was a politician who deserted nationalism for corruption with construction, using Shinto religion as cover and Shinto priests as static cover to locate Rain. Rain decides to surveil the enemy while Harry works on the disc. Yamaoto is the big bad behind Conviction. Yamaoto is the judo partner who was casing Rain at the time. He wants the disc same as Holtzer. Yamaoto has his men capture Rain during his surveillance and threatens torture for the disc. Rain refuses. Rain breaks out of the torture room and sprints for the subway. He loses them in the sub tunnel then doubles back to plant a bug in Yamaoto’s office. He encounters Flatnose again and kills him, leaving his body in the interrogation room to confuse Yamaoto.

Rain makes it back to Harry. Midori has bought a keyboard to attempt to decode the pattern. They listen to the bug at Yamaoto’s and learn that he and Holtzer work together and that Tatsu is also invested in the search for the disk. Unable to decide, they reach out to Bulfinch to publish the disc contents, confident that Forbes has the resources to decipher that Rain does not. Rain gives Bulfinch the disc along with the threat that if he fails, Midori gets hurt. Then he calls Tetsu of Japanese Intelligence to warn him that he’s in danger. They arrange to meet. Tetsu and Rain exchange info and learn Holtzer is Yamaoto’s pawn. Yamaoto runs blackmail on everyone and the disc is the contents. Yamaoto murdered Bulfinch immediately after the exchange and now has the disc. He has sourced coders to come decrypt, which ran through Tetsu’s government channels. Tetsu and Rain plan to have Yamaoto stopped outside the naval base after picking up the coder. Rain can make his move there. Rain gets to the base but is intercepted by Holtzer. Holtzer confesses he arranged the hit on crazy Jake back in ‘Nam. Rain escapes but has to chase Holtzer down at the base. Officers stop him and the disc is in an attache case carried by Holtzer’s aide. Tetsu shows up to arrest Rain for assaulting a diplomat right before the shooting starts.

Rain is imprisoned for five days. Tetsu releases him, but not before telling him that the disc won’t be published because it will leave a power vacuum that Conviction can fill, good or evil. Midori has been told that Rain is dead and she was sent to USA to keep her safe. And the disc incriminated Rain as well, hence Tetsu not releasing it. Rain goes back to the USA where he tracks down Holtzer, who has been publicly ousted as the CIA mole that’s been helping Yaomato and feeding USA bad intel all these years. Rain kills him and then drives to NYC to watch Midori perform from the shadows.

This was a rather soulless debriefing, resembling cliff notes more than impressions or analysis.  And frankly, it’s almost appropriate for the cold nature of this story.  There is not much passion, only mission.  There is not much characterization, only plot mandated obligations and the occasional sprinkle of vengeance.  The simplicity is applaudable, allowing numerous permutations to unfold in the reader’s mind throughout the story.  While book one’s are generally the sourdough starter that flavors the breadth of the franchise, this book felt a bit more insulated from the typical franchise template. Hopefully the next book in the series sharpens its long term focus and the resulting soul that normally accompanies the long term arcs of espionage franchises.