When the Rain Comes

Every once in a while an author comes along who's the literary equivalent of heroin, you read them, get hooked, read everything they've ever written, then get cold turkey waiting for them to write your next fix. Lee Child fell into that category on a friends recommendation I read the Jack Reacher book "One Shot" and within a week I'd bought and got signed copies of every Reacher book out there. A Jack Reacher novel reads like Dirty Harry on steroids, which is all right by me.

In a bought of Reacher turkey I hit my local pushers, Waterstones, looking for some more of the good stuff. That's when I stumbled on Barry Eisler courtesy of Lee Child. It was Lee's comment on acopy of Eisler's "The Last Assassin" that did it. "Eisler is exactly my kind of writer and his deadly main character John Rain is exactly my kind of guy - highly recommended". Good enough for Lee, good enough for me. After reading "The Last Assassin", brilliant, I then spent some time getting the rest of the series from Amazon, and pigging out on them. As promised John Rain proved to be up there with Jack Reacher. Entertainment weekly probably summed up the series best with "If Tarantino ever got a crack at Bond, chances are the results would resemble one of Eisler's novels." . Speaking of which the first book in the series "Rain Fall" is currently being filmed, with Garry Oldman in the cast.

The final book to date is "Requiem For An Assassin"and probably my favorite so far. Unfortunately I'm now in the dead zone again, with nothing left to read by Eisler or Lee. Bummer.

Yakuza slaying, bone crunching, heart stopping uber violence in exotic locales. Characters so well drawn they almost walk off the page to join you for a single malt in your favorite Jazz bar and beautiful women that leave the Bond girls in the shade. Fantastic stuff.

For updates on the film and more info on his work, check out Barry's website at www.barryeisler.com, then buy all the books. You won't regret it, until you run out too that is....