As a longtime fan of the John Rain series, I knew this book would become an enjoyable one. Set in the early 1980s, we get to see a younger John (post Graveyard of Memories for reference) return back to Tokyo and becoming caught up in various HI jinxes. It continues in the same vein as previous novels around a major antagonist and some excellent fighting and espionage scenes. And there's always a spark of romance as well with John striking a relationship with the antagonist's wife. Overall, a great addition to the lore of John Rain!

I can always tell when I REALLY like a book because I find myself reading it on my iPhone (usually I'm on the kindle) throughout the day or in the bathroom. This is my subconscious enjoyment barometer and this book just didn't make a bathroom appearance. I have read every John Rain book and am a big fan Barry Eisler's writing, but this book left me wanting more of the John Rain from earlier books. This book takes place at an earlier time in John Rain's career and he isn't the well seasoned suave Judo assassin that I've come to know and love. I get it, Eisler is going to continue the series and we get to see Rain mature and hone is natural assassination ability. I just wasn't that interested in reading about Rain dispatch guys with rocks and weights. My advise is to read Rain Fall/A clean kill in Tokyo before this because that book got me on board for the entire series.

This turned out to be a bit of a leap from any of my norms, and I'm glad I took that leap. Engaging, thrilling, with a hero that was at the same time a sort of anti- hero. A different culture to submerse myself in, a compelling plot, and a genius twist. A good time read, without the mind numbing simplicity those usually entail. Solid book.

Thank you NET GALLEY

The story is set back in the early 80's but the style will let younger readers know why we used to read so much

Great writing combined with realistic narrative, and no politics or current #hashtag messages dropped around every paragraph. Let it RAIN and enjoy!

Thank you to Netgalley for introducing me to Barry Eisler. This is his second book I have read, and I enjoyed it just as much as the first one. Full of suspense, I would highly recommend Zero Sum

Disclaimer: I received an e-ARC of this book from the publisher and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Zero Sum is Eisler's ninth book in the John Rain series. The book is set further back in John's history, 1982. I brisk pace is set and once again, Rain has some problems and comes up with extraordinary solutions.

Eisner is one of my new favorites and this his ninth John Rain novel(a detective series set primarily in Japan) is one of my favorites as it is sort of an origins tale-flashing back to early in Rain’s career when he first began work after a stint as a mercenary. These books are not for the faint of hear but they are fast paced, exciting and fun.

ZERO SUM by Barry Eisler is the 9th book in the John Rain Series, and John has returned to Tokyo and has met up with a close friend from the past and offers to help his friend out with a named Victor, an alleged son of a Soviet general and native Japanese mother who has been eliminating employees after threatening to do so at his friend’s firm at an alarming rate, thereby forcing his services to be secured at an exorbitant rate.

Rain is advised strongly by his friend not to get involved, but he insists and goes undercover to join Victor’s group of professional assassins, which puts both he and his friend’s lives in great danger.

Maria is the wife of the target assigned to Rain by Victor, a top level politician, which is both good and bad; good in that it provides him with an inside window into his target’s movements, but bad that John falls for Maria affecting his focus that needs to be entirely on the task at hand.

Will John Rain be able to successfully bring down Victor and his crew without harming those he cares about, and is he capable of separating his feelings for Maria to focus on the task at hand?

Barry Eisler does an excellent job presenting an espionage/special ops novel that is unusual in that it focuses as much on the thoughts of John and the personalities of the others, while maintaining a level of action sufficient to keep the book from being bogged down, and the hand-to-hand combat situations are very well done; even though they are graphic in description I didn’t find them overdone, and would look forward to reading others books in the series having started with this one.

4 stars.

Quite a satisfying espionage thriller. The hero of a series I am breaking into, John Rain, is a bit disreputable in his current occupation of a soldier-spy for hire. But he appreciates it when the people he has to kill are bad guys. He may engage in adultery to fulfill his love life, but his desire burns true. In the face of monstrous enemies with nefarious plans for more and more power, Rain gains our permission to grow the body count, dodge death in many forms, while achieving some personal justice and good loving along the way.

We catch up with Rain as he returns to Tokyo in 1982 after a decade of mercenary work in the Philippines, where his efforts on behalf of rebel forces leaves him painted in a corner. An old comrade-in-arms, now an executive for a powerful company with many fingers in the political landscape, refers him for mercenary work to Victor. From all their macho moves and mental wrestling with each other during his job interview, this half-Japanese Russian becomes a fiendish adversary for Rain.

In the few years since Victor arrived from Russia he has somehow managed to make a monopoly out of all the contract killing in the city. The corporate powers, political parties, and yakuza all play ball with this arrangement. Rain wants to figure out what silent international partners are behind Victor’s success and find a way to get his friend and his company out from under Victor’s thumb. Rain goes through the motions of taking on the job of killing a candidate for prime minister, a race opened up due to the recent death of the incumbent, reportedly from a heart attack. Under guise of planning his job, he works hard to sort out his enemies’ intentions and resources. His approach to scoping out the candidate he’s supposed to hit involves developing an undercover relationship with his wife, Maria, a socialite and museum manager.

Something sparks the romance effect, and soon they are spending a lot of time together. His life is so tough, I suppose we must forgive him for violating the rule of not getting involved with the marks in The Game (like we always did for James Bond) While sneaking about town they are attacked by skilled assassins. But our boy is better. For the rest of the book, our hero is desperately pressed to figure out whether their target was her or him and who put the contract out. Some of the candidates include Victor himself, the yakuza, the CIA, a right-wing political faction in Japan, or some combination of the above.

Rain’s affinity for Tokyo appears to be a channel for the author to express his own history with and love for the city with great atmospherics in the narrative on its social rituals, fashions, foods, gardens, temples, bars, and clubs. I liked the sense of place in this tale. I also liked Rain’s character being a cool combination of brain and brawn. He’s not quite the superman package of Trevanian’s Hel, brilliant at all martial arts and deeply wise as a Zen-master. Still, he has significant ju-ju from being a star in the Special Forces and their teamwork with the CIA in the Vietnam War, his growing up in Japan, and a master at swordplay and at harnessing mindfulness to effective crisis response and offensive combat. It all adds up to a fun ride, an energizing mind-twister, and pleasing celebration of old tropes in new bottles.

This book was provided by the publisher for review through the Netgalley program. Thanks for Larry for recommending it in his terrific review.

I had outmaneuvered the son of the most powerful yakuza in Tokyo, a guy who had earned the sobriquet "Mad Dog", picking off his soldiers one by one as they tried to hunt me down. I had spent a lifetime learning and implementing the lessons of guerilla warfare-first, as a half-breed kid bullied in Japan and in the working-class American town my mother brought me to after my father had died; then in Vietnam; and then again most recently, in the Philippines. I was good at violence. Exceptionally good. Exceptionally unfazed by it. There's a cost to that kind of aptitude, and maybe the cost isn't worth it. But for the moment the cost wasn't the point. The point was, I was good.

This is my first John Rain and I have put the others on notice on my to read shelf. I was intrigued by this guy. His Japanese background, not being accepted, finding his way, and his own brand of justice. He has been pulled into a Japanese mob of sorts. A man that is half Japanese and half Russian with his own issues. His own issues that Rain in the end came to an understanding. But I am getting ahead of myself. Rain has been hired in a unconventional way to kill a Japanese diplomat.

One thing that I did not know is that Japan does not allow guns in their country. The author does an exceptional job of introducing to his readers to Japanese culture and using real places that may not be familiar to the average joe. In fact, the author has put in the back of his book, notes of places that are mentioned and the significance of Japanese culture. For me personally, I felt a real connection (my mother in law is Japanese).

Back on track- Rain must find out the reason for the hit before he finds himself 6 feet under. All the while, he finds himself attracted to the diplomats wife and things get a little complicated. The narration is what draws me ...It's the details without being bogged down with the details. There is a methodical way to Rain, he is aware of his surroundings and the people he deals with. It kind of left me spell bound.

A Special Thank You to Thomas Mercer and Netgalley for the ARC and the opportunity to post an honest review.

This is the first one I have read from Barry Eisler in his John Rain series. I know it is way out of sequence,but this was a very good start to get started with.

The writing was crisp and really well thought out and all the characters were really very good.I like John Rain and I will read some more of this series.

Really enjoyable read and well worth a go.

John Rain has an occupation which is unusual but borne out of his life in the military and subsequent mercenary work, he is an assassin. Returning to Japan after a period in the Philippines he discovers a Russian called Victor is monopolising all the hit jobs - why? This is a story of a guy trying to get his old job back only difference is the type of job. Good story with normal thriller elements thrown in, some romance / sex, greed, power and of course murder. Although it is entertaining it is not really a mystery what is going to happen. The author has chose to leave enough clues for you to work it out fairly quickly. In summary it is predictable but very enjoyable, definitely a holiday read.

A tale from the youth of John Rain, with a very enthralling story showing how he became the cold, but at the same time human assassin we all know and love. Also shows some light how he got so successful with the opposite sex...

I've long been a fan of the John Rain character, and it was interesting to learn more about his younger self. Unfortunately, I didn't think this was as interesting as some of the earlier titles in the series.

second rain book i have tried to read, just not my type of book. havent been able to put my finger on what exactly it is, but the books just dont deliver enough for my liking.

A very exciting thriller that takes the reader back to the beginning of our favorite assassin. John Rain. The book starts in Tokyo in 1972. in the beginning of this next in series. He writes of the the early days of his character in Tokyo, then some ten years later. In the interval, Rain has been involved in para-military in the southern Philippines, He is already a killer, but he must still acquire the trade that will come to define his career as an assassin. To a large extent, that is the story of this book. I enjoyed reading of the exciting start to his career and how he emerged from that time as a trained killer to what he is today. As he proceeds to current day and his next job the past sets the stage or his next assignation. For fans of this series this book sets the frame for each book in series and our characters development.
It is non stop action and excitement throughout this next in series. A very well crafted thriller sure to please any fan of non stop action thrillers. This is a great series I look forward to the next installment.
Thank you for the ARC which did not influence my review.

After the tonally misjudged standalone novel Livia Lone I was hoping for a return to form from Barry Eisler as he went back to his well-established series featuring Japanese/American assassin John Rain.

Unfortunately and disappointingly, rather than coming up with a contemporary Rain thriller that would pick up where ‘The Detachment’ left-off, Eisler has decided to produce yet another prequel to the John Rain series, following on from 2014’s ‘Graveyard of Memories’.

Whilst Graveyard was set in the mid-Seventies, Zero Sum brings Rain forward to 1980’s Tokyo and finds him back in the city looking for work after a stint as a mercenary in the Philippines. The 80’s setting should be a real strength for the book, allowing Eisler to paint a fascinating and evocative portrait of Tokyo in the midst of an unprecedented economic boom that would bring rapid change to all parts of Japanese society. However, whilst Graveryard of Memories was successful in it evocation of 70’s Japan, Zero Sum fails to generate the same tangible atmosphere. At no point do you get a real sense of the changes Japan was undergoing at the time, beyond some passing comments about the number of cranes on the Tokyo skyline. Whilst Japan has almost been a character in its own right in previous Rain novels here its relegated to a bit player at best.

That wouldn’t necessarily be a problem if what Eisler presented instead made up for the lack of atmosphere or a sense of time and place. Unfortunately, with Zero Sum he doesn’t. Instead he offers up many of the same weaknesses that afflicted Graveyard of Dreams.

The most obvious of these, which is insurmountable when writing a prequel to existing stories featuring the same character, is the book’s complete lack of genuine jeopardy. We know from page 1 that John Rain will ultimately survive the events that will occur and will go on to become a master assassin. We also know from the later books that he will not suffer any permanently debilitating or disfiguring injuries. Therefore there is no question or ‘will he prevail’, just of how. This robs the whole novel of any real sense of danger, and with it much of the expected excitement. As a reader you’re never really on the edge of your seat because you already know pretty much how the story will end.

Some may argue that if Rain himself isn’t in any real danger then it’s the fates of the various supporting characters that lend the book its unpredictability, and this is to an extent true. However, to be genuinely gripped by what happens to lesser characters you have to be engaged by them and to care about what ultimately happens to them. However, with the entire story narrated by Rain and everything filtered through his perspective, none of the supporting characters get any real life of their own. Whether bad guys, allies or love interests, they all remain entirely one dimensional. Some might get their backgrounds broadly sketched out but they never become proper, living breathing human beings who leap off the page.

It all makes for a somewhat ho-hum reading experience that never really grabs you. Eisler’s prose remains accessible and easy to read, he keeps the plot moving forward and the bursts of action that pepper the story are well written and dynamic, but everything else about Zero Sum feels rather anaemic.

Even the bad guys in Zero Sum never feel like they pose a genuine threat to Rain, which really says it all. This is despite Eisler working hard to build up one as a psychotic live-wire capable of unpredictable violence and the other as a mysterious, Machiavellian power behind the throne who we don’t even meet until his first and only confrontation with Rain. Again, the foreknowledge that Rain will survive going up against both reduces the danger they pose, but equally Eisler never really convinces you that either man could really, seriously challenge Rain. It doesn’t help that the ultimate ‘big-bad’ remains off-stage until pretty much the very end so that the reader knows almost nothing about him or his capabilities apart from a few vague snippets Rain gleans as the story progresses.

The result of all these issues is that Zero Sum is a thriller that never really sparks into life on any level and has none of the strengths of the other John rain books beyond some punchy action. Which is a shame, because I know first-hand that Barry Eisler can produce excellent and genuinely exciting thrillers. Maybe he just needs to stop with the prequels and bring John Rain back to the unpredictable present day.

Note: I was lucky enough to receive my copy of Zero Sum as a pre-publication copy via NetGalley in exchange for an unbiased review

I'm always up to read a John Rain novel by Barry Eisler so I was really excited to be able to review Zero Sum. That it's a prequel made the prospect even better. A young John has returned to Japan after a decade of time in the Philippines. He's drawn into a game constructed by none other than our own CIA, set to take out a rogue of sorts named Victor, who shares certain similarities with John, like his half-Japanese heritage. But if John thinks that will help endear him to Victor, he will have another think coming, because Victor isn't about to befriend someone when he has his own quest for vengeance.

As always, Zero Sum is full of tightly constructed action sequences and mental and emotional games that a young John has to endure if he wants to stay alive. No one writes a great fight scene quite like Barry Eisler, and Zero Sum is no exception. I think the action scenes here would translate really well to a series of movies like Jason Bourne. If only Hollywood would get it together to make that happen!

If you want to see how John Rain becomes an assassin, look no further than Zero Sum. Barry Eisler hasn't lost his touch at all throughout this series and I'm really looking forward to more from him and my favorite assassin, John Rain.

Thanks to NetGalley, Barry Eisler, his publisher, and everyone mentioned in the acknowledgments! I eagerly devoured my review copy of the first John Rain novel to come out in a long while. Let's hope it isn't so long before the next one. Zero Sum takes us to an earlier John Rain.
Rain takes on a nasty man, Victor, who appears to have taken over assassination in Japan. There's much more to it, and author Barry Eisler skillfully unravels it amidst great violence. As always, I see Rain as less a murderer than a guy doing pro bono work for the unsuspecting public. The violence is well described and bloody. As is the sex. Well-described, that is. Eisler must have worked at that! He made the elegant Italian wife of a Japanese politician most desirable.
The only other familiar character, to me at least, is the police detective Tatsu, an admirable and honest (enough) cop. I look forward to another John Rain novel appearing soon, perhaps bringing back some of or other favorite characters, Dox and Delilah come to mind.

4.5 stars

I was so excited when I saw that there was going to be another book in the John Rain series. I was first introduced to Barry Eisler's John Rain series years ago through a site called bzzagent. I was selected to read a book and give my honest opinion. That book was the 4th in the series (Killing Rain now known as Redemption Games). I was hooked!!! I quickly read the first three books in the series and have been a Barry Eisler (and John Rain!) fan ever since. I have read Eisler's other books as well but the John Rain series remains my favorite! Eisler never disappoints - the action is fast, the plot moves at a great speed and there will be intrigue, mystery, fighting, sex, and plot twists along the way. It is no wonder that he has such a huge fan base. I find Eisler's books to be intelligent, fun, dark, and suspenseful.

In this book, a young John Rain has returned to Tokyo after spending a decade in the Philippines working as a mercenary. The year is 1982 and Rain has been given the task of eliminating/killing a Japanese politician by a man named Victor. Victor is half Japanese- half Russian thug who controls the "killing" business in Tokyo. But is Victor really in charge or is someone controlling him? As Rain goes about completing his task, the bodies begin to pile up and Rain begins a relationship with the politician's wife.

Rain relies on some friends along the way to fill in some background info as he determines his best course of action. Speaking of action, there is a lot of it in this book. I have always enjoyed the fight scenes. They are really vivid. The Author has spent time in Japan, has a covert position with the CIA, and has martial arts experience. It is no wonder that his action and story lines feel real, descriptive and vivid.

This book is a prequel and does a good job showing how John Rain became an assassin. It also works well as a stand alone book but I think hard core Rain/Eisler fans will especially appreciate this book! This book will get your heart pumping and your fingers turning the page.

I received a copy of this book from Thomas and Mercer and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.