Book #51 - Detachment

The new book from Barry Eisler, a return of the John Rain series, but with a new publisher (Amazon). I was interested to see if the editing had changed or the style was different. I don’t think it has, especially after I immediately read the couple previous books after this one got me excited.

Rain has been retired, or semi-retired in Detachment, back living in Tokyo. However he’s not ignoring his environment and when he finds two people shadowing him at judo practice, he decides to act. They follow him, in a way that suggests they aren’t friendly, and he kills them. However they’re only two of a four man team. The other two are smarter and merely call Rain, asking for a meeting.

An Army General, knowing of Rain from Vietnam, wants to hire him to stop a group from taking over the government and getting martial law declared. Rain is sold, and brings in Dox, along with the other two operators (Treven and Larison). Larison is being blackmailed by the colonel, Horten, who stole 100 million in diamonds from him. Treven is a good soldier, but outside of the organization.

They kill two targets, before Rain realizes that they are hastening the potential declaration of martial law by slipping two key people into position. Kanezaki helps them figure it out, and helps them when they become fugitives from Homeland Security. They manage to extricate themselves by the end, but it’s a nice switch from the rouge shadowy operations of the CIA in the other books to a modern, terrorist based plot. It reminds me of what happened with xx in the Lion series after 9/11.

This one can stand by itself, though there are a few references to Midori and Delilah in there. I’d read the others first, just to follow the story, but this one stands on it’s own.