Barry Eisler

After graduating from Cornell Law School in 1989, Barry Eisler spent three years with the U.S. government. For a decade thereafter he practiced various aspects of international law, including a year with the Japanese law firm of Hamada and Matsumoto in Tokyo and two years as in-house counsel at the Osaka headquarters of Matsushita Electric and Industrial Co., Ltd.

Barry is most well known for his action thriller series featuring John Rain.

Mr. Eisler earned his black belt in judo from the Kodokan International Judo Center in Tokyo.

Today he lives and works in the San Francisco Bay Area and travels to Japan frequently.

Lived: 1964 -

A Graveyard of Memories

What makes a legendary assassin? For John Rain, it was the lessons of love, war, and betrayal he learned in Tokyo in 1972. Fresh from the killing fields of Southeast Asia, Rain works as a bagman under the watchful eye of his CIA handler, delivering cash to corrupt elements of the Japanese government. But when(…)

Graveyard of Memories

Fault Line

In Silicon Valley, the eccentric inventor of a new encryption application is murdered in an apparent carjacking. In Istanbul, a cynical undercover operative receives a frantic call from his estranged younger brother. When Alex Treven, a patent lawyer who has been working for the inventor, is attacked in his apartment, he is convinced he is(…)

Inside Out

Torture. Ghost detainees. And a massive cover-up that continues even today. This is the propulsive thriller that only former CIA operative turned bestselling novelist Barry Eisler could write. Marooned in a Manila jail after a bar fight fatality, black ops soldier Ben Treven gets a visit from his former commander, Colonel Scott Horton, who explains(…)

Rain Fall (A Clean Kill in Tokyo)

Name: John Rain. Vocation: Assassin. Speciality: Natural Causes. Base of operations: Tokyo. Availability: Worldwide. Half American, half Japanese, expert in both worlds but at home in neither, John Rain is the best killer money can buy. You tell him who. You tell him where. He doesn’t care about why… Until he gets involved with Midori(…)

Hard Rain (Blood From Blood and A Lonely Resurrection)

Barry Eisler’s half-breed freelance assassin John Rain returns to Tokyo for a second outing in Hard Rain, the sequel to Eisler’s stunning 2002 debut, Rain Fall. Once again Rain is working with, or at least parallel to, Tatsu, a wily veteran of Japan’s FBI equivalent, who aims to cleanse the Japanese government of its systemic(…)

Rainstorm (Choke Point and Winner Take All)

Critics praised Barry Eisler’s first two novels, Rain Fall and Hard Rain, calling Japanese-American John Rain, the cynical, romantic, conscientious assassin, “one of the most memorable characters in recent thrillers” (San Jose Mercury News) and “a remarkable creation, a multifaceted killer with the soul of a poet” (Mystery Ink). In Rain Storm, Rain has fled(…)

Killing Rain (One Last Kill and Redemption Games)

No one but Japanese-American assassin John Rain can win the game of cross and double cross he encounters in this new novel of sexy international intrigue in the series. Torn between his past as a soldier and his vocation as a killer, longing for attachment but forced to operate alone, and haunted by the fear(…)

The Last Assassin (Extremis)

Even for an average citizen, a love triangle is dangerous business. For assassin John Rain–“one of the most compelling lead characters in the genre” (USA Today)–it’s going to be downright deadly Even for an average citizen, a love triangle is dangerous business. For assassin John Rain–“one of the most compelling lead characters in the genre”(…)

Requiem For An Assassin (The Killer Ascendant)

Hunted and finally cornered, John Rain faces his deadliest enemy ever: himself. For Rain, “the most charismatic assassin since James Bond” (San Francisco Chronicle), getting out of the life was never going to be easy. But with a new identity in Paris, and the help of his lover, Mossad agent Delilah, he was beginning to(…)

The Detachment

John Rain is back. And ‘the most charismatic assassin since James Bond’ (San Francisco Chronicle) is up against his most formidable enemy yet: the nexus of political, military, media, and corporate factions known only as the Oligarchy. When legendary black ops veteran Colonel Scott ‘Hort’ Horton tracks Rain down in Tokyo, Rain can’t resist the(…)

All Action, All the Time