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    The Detachment
    The Detachment
    The Detachment
    Audiobook10 hours

    The Detachment

    Written by Barry Eisler

    Narrated by Barry Eisler

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    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 offer: a multi-million dollar payday for the “natural causes” demise of three ultra-high-profile targets who are dangerously close to launching a coup in America.

    But the opposition on this job is going to be too much for even Rain to pull it off alone. He’ll need a detachment of other deniable irregulars: his partner, the former Marine sniper, Dox. Ben Treven, a covert operator with ambivalent motives and conflicted loyalties. And Larison, a man with a hair trigger and a secret he’ll kill to protect.

    From the shadowy backstreets of Tokyo and Vienna, to the deceptive glitz and glamour of Los Angeles and Las Vegas, and finally to a Washington, D.C. in a permanent state of war, these four lone wolf killers will have to survive presidential hit teams, secret CIA prisons, and a national security state as obsessed with guarding its own secrets as it is with invading the privacy of the populace.

    But first, they’ll have to survive each other.

    The Detachment is what fans of Eisler, “one of the most talented and literary writers in the thriller genre” (Chicago Sun-Times), have been waiting for: the worlds of the award-winning Rain series, and of the bestselling Fault Line and Inside Out, colliding in one explosive thriller as real as today’s headlines and as frightening as tomorrow’s.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrilliance Audio
    Release dateSep 15, 2011
    ISBN9781455843244
    The Detachment
    Author

    Barry Eisler

    Barry Eisler spent three years in a covert position with the CIA’s Directorate of Operations, then worked as a technology lawyer and startup executive in Silicon Valley and Japan, earning his black belt at the Kodokan Judo Institute along the way. Eisler’s bestselling thrillers have won the Barry Award and the Gumshoe Award for Best Thriller, have been included in numerous “Best of” lists, have been translated into nearly twenty languages, and include the #1 bestseller Livia Lone. Eisler lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and, when he’s not writing novels, blogs about torture, civil liberties, and the rule of law. Learn more at www.barryeisler.com.

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    Reviews for The Detachment

    4/5

    163 ratings11 reviews

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    • 2/5
      I’ve read all the John Rain stories and this one falls flat. This is a departure from the character somewhat. Known to be an assassin who works alone, here he is part of a team out to get rid of three ‘targets’. I did like. I also didn’t like the interjection of Eisler’s personal political views. I read for enjoyment, not for a lesson. This is my least favorite of all his books.
    • 4/5
      After a bit of a break, my reading his books and him writing the Rain series, we're both back. This one's not so good; a wildly improbable, and horribly preachy, domestic terrorism/coup/whatthehell story, it still is interesting enough and certainly moves along briskly after the half-way mark. Not really recommended unless you just fall upon it.
    • 3/5
      I have to admit that this was my first Barry Eisler book. Sure, I've read plenty of his comments about writing, e-books, the rise of the independent authors, his love of internet memes; but this was the first time I've been able to grab one of his books to read.

      Before I comment on the book itself, I just wanted to say that this was a library book that I borrowed. Yes this point is significant. With the current turmoil over Amazon becoming a publisher there was a lot of talk about boycotting and limiting access of Amazon published books in bookstores and libraries. Clearly there wasn't much substance to that particular stance, since this Thomas and Mercer published book was right there on the library shelf for me to read.

      Did I enjoy this book? Yes. Would I read another of Barry's thrillers? Yes. Then why only three stars? Well, simply put, the book was solid but not spectacular. It kept me entertained, but didn't keep me glued the way 4 and 5 star books do. This was more to do with the second half of the book and what felt like a petering out of tension.

      Either way, I look forward to reading some of the earlier books in the Rain series.
    • 3/5
      This is a very well written book, with a very good plot, excellent character development and a readability factor which altogether results in a book that is difficult to put down.
    • 3/5
      summer-2013, tbr-busting-2013, fraudio, series, japan, spies, tokyo, published-2011, testost-tosh, adventureRead from August 25 to 28, 2013Read by author and he is easy on the ears as well as being easy on the eye.Not having read the Treven/Larison teamed-up series to flesh out their back-history and quirks, I didn't initially warm to their inclusion, yet the Rain/Dox duo carried me over and this settled down into an exciting testosterone adventure.That said, I'm pretty much over and done with Eisler's oeuvre.3* A Clean Kill in Tokyo (John Rain, #1)3* A Lonely Resurrection (John Rain, #2)3* Winner Take All (John Rain, #3)3* Redemption Games (John Rain, #4)3* Extremis (John Rain, #5)3* The Killer Ascendant(John Rain, #6)3* The Detachment (John Rain, #7)2* Paris Is A Bitch
    • 5/5
      I didn't want to put it down. I think it's the best of the Rain series (and that's saying a lot since I thoroughly enjoyed the entire series). The story stands alone so you don't have to read the rest to get this one. I understand that one of the main characters in this book (Treven) is a recurring character in another of Eisler's series - one which I'm going to pick up now, even though Rain and Dox are still my favorites.)It has a much different flavor than the other books in the series in that there is a huge political "conspiracy" here which is the premise of the story. It's a convoluted and complicated plot, but you don't get lost en route, so the complexity is actually rather refreshing and enjoyable (and is why I didn't want to put it down).If you have a problem with conspiracies that suggest the US government and the 'elite rich' have ulterior motives in the 'war on terror', you might be one of those readers who gave this book a low star rating. If you believe that the assassination of JFK was an inside job, you probably are one of those who give this book a high rating.The plot is tight, the action is non-stop, the violence is detailed, and the characters are distinct and fully-fleshed and believable. All in all, it's exactly what I was looking for in a novel with an assassin as the main character. (If you like books with these kind of characters - you could also try Block's Keller series.)
    • 4/5
      Good thriller. Well defined and interesting characters. Good plot. Politics of this novel aside - and I didn't care much for those - good and easy read.
    • 3/5
      Let me start with the statement that this one takes a great deal of suspension of disbelief. However, if you're capable of that, its a pretty decent little adventure featuring the Japanese/American assassin John Rain. This one involves a plot to suspend the Constitution. Rain sorts through the mazes and of course in the end saves the day. What always saves this series is the likability of the characters and this one is no exception. Eisler is a pretty fair writer too.
    • 4/5
      I really, really like Barry Eisler, especially his John Rain books. So I was thrilled to finally have a new Rain book (after a few years off for the Ben Treven novels). And while I enjoyed The Detachment, I didn't love it. I think that my criticism can be broken down into two principal issues. First, there wasn't enough of Rain getting to do the kinds of things that make him such an enjoyable character. Sure the neuroses were there in full force. But after the first third of the book, he didn't really have the chance to focus on the super-detailed planning that has made his exploits so memorable. Tie this in to the fact that Eisler had to juggle four characters (and, it should be noted, he did a masterful job of this, remembering and making it easy for the reader to recognize each character as unique, in terms of thoughts, motivations, mannerisms, speech patterns, etc.). The problem, however, is that because each of these characters had to get some "screen time", it meant that none of them were given the opportunity to shine that perhaps was required. This was especially true for Rain. It must also be said that Treven, who comes off as quite a stud in the two books focusing on him, seems very much a novice when compared to Rain, Dox, and Larison. I'm not sure if this was intentional on Eisler's part or not. One thing worth pointing out: Eisler's politics are decidedly not in line with most other authors writing in this genre, and that is a refreshing change of pace. Moreover, while he articulates a political worldview, and even puts a part of that at the center of the storyline, he doesn't feel compelled to hit the reader over the head with his politics, and certainly not over and over and over as some authors have become known to do (I'm talking to you Messrs. Flynn and Thor). Anyway, take my criticisms with the following caveat: Even a sub-standard Eisler book is far, far better, than most of the other books presently being written in this genre. As I'm sure I've said in the past, if you haven't read Eisler, do yourself a favor and remedy that omission.
    • 4/5
      How great was it to have John Rain back in my life. I've missed him so. It's been 4 years since Requiem for an Assassin which ended with John Rain getting out of the assassin business. During that time, John and Delilah lived in Paris and John tried to live life like a normal person. But that didn't last long (either did his relationship) so he moved back to Japan where Hort (from Inside Out) made John an offer he couldn't refuse, but with a few caveats: John can work with Dox (yay!) but he also has to work with Ben Treven (from Fault Line and Inside Out) and with crazy Larison (also from Inside Out). This unlikely team of 4 has to assassinate 3 people for Hort but when Hort crosses the line of wanting to eliminate a woman (John's rule -- no women and no children), they decide that they need to eliminate Hort. Then there's the whole save the USA from terrorists and John, Dox, Ben, and Larison have to decide which side they're actually on.
    • 5/5
      An amazing collection of Black Ops contract killers set on a course of destruction with normal solo workers being forced into an unnatural cooperative team structure where their life's depend on their ability to trust and cooperate to satisfy their objectives. Who is responsible for setting them up and who can they trust to find their way beyond the barriers that are trying to contain them and eliminate or neutralize them? This is an action packed thriller with the added challenge of trying to disarm the internal psychological strife. Hold on tightly and charge on through!