Hello,
This is my review for Barry Eisler's "Graveyard of Memories". This review features small spoilers, but I try to provide a brief synopsis without giving away too much. I don't know much about Barry Eisler's John Rain series, this seems to be a prequel to the 7 previous novels in his John Rain series. I'd like to thank NetGalley.com for the ability to read this book before it's officially released. The book is due to be released February 11th, 2014. If you love to read as much as I do, check out NetGalley.com to read tomorrow's hits today.
When we first meet Rain, he's a 20 year old kid living in Tokyo, the action in this novel is in 1972. Rain is half Japanese-half American. He's recently returned from the Vietnam War after fighting for the Americans. He briefly returned to America before coming to Japan, a country to both loathes and loves. Rain narrates how he got his start in the assassination business and lets us know how much things have changed since then.
This is the 8th novel in Barry Eisler's John Rain series. Rain found his way back to Japan. His Japanese father died many years ago in some kind of riots whereas his American mother just died about a year prior to the action in this novel. Although he has ties with both countries, neither place is his home. He's drifting through life, has no real plans while he figuring out what he wants to do with the rest of his life. He's working for the CIA as some kind of courier, under the tutelage of Sean McGraw, a Korean war vet.
On one of his trips as a courier he gets attacked by 3 thugs. They don't know Rain has special forces training and knows how to protect himself. In the fight he kills one of the men, he later finds out the thug is related to a member of a powerful Yakuza organization. (The Yakuza roughly is the Japanese mafia.) They attacked him because they thought he might have something valuable in his bag he was using for his courier assignments. Because of he killed, a hit was put out on his head. However McGraw offers him a way to save his own life by killing off targets that are a thorn in the side of the CIA. He can get out of trouble by assassinating some of the people trying to kill him.
But until he kills them he's living a life on the run. He's a marked man and has to lie low until he takes care of the men after him.
Of course there has to be a love story. Rain meets a girl named Sayaka, she works at the counter of a so-called "love hotel". Sayaka is in a wheelchair. Their first date is a complete success and they have sex at the end of the date. (The sex scene is very graphic and needlessly runs for several pages.) The reason Rain went to Sayaka's hotel is for anonymity. Although Rain has killed some of the people who are after him, he's still a marked man. Instead of staying on the run and being anonymous, he continues to frequent the hotel Sayaka works at. The bad guy, Mad Dog, eventually catches up to him and his relationship with Sayaka ends better than I expected. The whole situation is complicated by the fact that Rain killed Mad Dog's father.
Eventually Rain realizes he's been set up by McGraw. McGraw hires Rain's alter ego, Taro Yamada, to kill Rain. Fortunately for Rain, he knows about McGraw's plan and he can protect himself. Rain is foolish though and lets McGraw know that he's coming after him. Does Rain really want to add the CIA to his enemies list when he's already at odds with the Yakuza? Fortunately he has a friend on the police force, Tatsu. Tatsu helps him resolve this potentially dangerous situation very eloquently.
I'm not sure how Rain can live with himself- killing 4 people in the afternoon and then going on a date with Sayaka the same night. He doesn't have much remorse for those he has killed. While Rain is a good character, but not Jack Ryan or Jack Reacher caliber, it's things like above that I'll never be able to understand his mind set. He'd be more of a compelling anti-hero if killing people wasn't so frequent or easy for him.
This is the first book I've read by Eisler and I'll probably read another one of his books. The book picked up about 3/4ths of the way through the novel, however the ending felt a bit lacking. The ending is good, but not great. Of course since this is a prequel to 7 other novels it doesn't really end as it takes more of a break. I like the fate of Sayaka, it was a bit outside of the box. What happened to Sayaka is also very sweet and I'm very happy for her. For Rain though this book ends with him still fighting a lot of demons.
I'd give this book a 7 out of 10 rating. I do plan on reading other books in the John Rain series.
themusicaddict
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