Enjoying a Rain of Terror

One of the few things on which most serious readers of mystery, crime, and suspense fiction agree is taking pleasure in the inevitable destruction of evil. Whether the books feature hard-boiled private eyes, vicars, spies, homicide detectives, lawyers, or cats as the principal crime fighters, there is delicious satisfaction in that moment when the bad guy is brought to justice.

There are a few eccentrics with opinions that deviate from this comfort zone, of course, just as a percentage of the population rejoiced when O.J. Simpson was permitted to begin his dedicated pursuit of his wife's killer. So I have to ask myself: What am I thinking about when I find myself rooting for professional assassins?

When you get to know him, it's impossible not to align yourself with John Rain, the hero of five novels by Barry Eisler. It is possible that the most recent book in the series, "The Last Assassin" (Putnam, 338 pages, $24.95) is the best yet, though I have been an addict ever since the first one, "Rain Fall."

Rain is the son of an American mother and a Japanese father, living alternately in each country, and gleaning the best traits of both while never feeling entirely at home in either. A veteran of the Vietnam War, Rain was trained by the American special forces and is a natural. Expert at martial arts, an unerring sharpshooter, and fearless, he is the perfect killer.

After the war, he uses these skills to become a contract assassin, mainly for the CIA (Mr. Eisler, too, worked for the CIA for three years, though probably not as an assassin). He won't accept a job to kill a woman or a child, or an innocent third party — an ethical killer. His special skill is making deaths appear to be from natural causes.

In Rain's first appearance, he is hired to kill a corrupt government official who happens to be the father of the alluring jazz pianist, Midori, with whom he has fallen in love. The background of jazz clubs, whiskey bars, and "love hotels" brings nighttime Tokyo to life more fully than in any crime novel I've ever read — including those by Japanese authors. Mr. Eisler lived in Tokyo for many years, speaks fluent Japanese, and his first book was published in Japan long before it found an American publisher.

In "Hard Rain," the assassin's second outing, he is caught in the middle of a battle between the CIA and the Japanese mafia, neither of whom Rain can trust. Typical of the insouciant humor of the novels, he muses, "Once you get past the overall irony of the situation, you realize that killing a guy in the middle of his own health club has a lot to recommend it."

"The Last Assassin" finds Midori back on the scene with the stunning news that their affair resulted in a baby, now 15 months old. Although he has been enjoying an exhaustingly lusty time with the beautiful Delilah, a Mossad agent with whom he worked in the third ("Rain Storm") and fourth ("Killing Rain") books, he makes every effort to resume the relationship with the mother of his son. What he doesn't know is that she has been used as a decoy to lure him into a potentially lethal trap.

Scenes of sudden violence and moments of nearly unbearable suspense are reminiscent of James Bond's greatest hits. The reason 007 remains so much a part of our cultural awareness is his appearance in a series of stupendously successful motion pictures. Perhaps this is the fate awaiting John Rain, as the character has been optioned by Barrie Osborne, the Oscar-winning producer of the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy.

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Another professional murderer with whom it is a pleasure to spend time is John Keller, the protagonist of Lawrence Block's "Hit Parade" (Morrow, 304 pages, $24.95). He gets his assignments through an agent, Dot, with whom he has a warm and easy relationship.Their exchanges are generally humorous, even when speaking of an impending murder, or the aftermath of one.

To think that a series of books (this is the third, after 1998's "Hit Man" and 2000's "Hit List") about a nearly amoral killer can be dryly humorous on a consistent basis is antithetical to all my beliefs. Murder isn't amusing. Okay, I lied. In these stories, it is.

Although the publisher tries to pass it off as a novel, "Hit Parade" is a short story collection, and a superb one. Several of the stories were written for anthologies I edited, and they never failed to excite me when the envelope containing the manuscript showed up in the mail.

In "Keller's Designated Hitter" (first published in an anthology of baseball mysteries titled "Murderers' Row" after the potent line-up of the 1927 New York Yankees), he is hired to kill an aging baseball star. A jockey scheduled to win a fixed race is the potential target in "Keller by a Nose" (from "Murder at the Racetrack"). In "Keller's Double Dribble" (from "Murder at the Foul Line"), he goes to Indiana and is given two tickets to watch the Pacers play the Knicks (it seems like a vintage story now, since the Knicks in the story actually played in a meaningful game). His job is to dispose of someone who apparently witnessed some corporate shenanigans. He sells one of the tickets, then rues the fact that he didn't sell them both, which would have "spared him the ordeal of a basketball game."

Keller's targets pretty much deserve what they have coming, but even he wonders sometimes if what he does for a living is ethical. I don't know the answer to that, but one can't help but wish someone would hire him, or John Rain, to pay a visit to Iran or North Korea (or, what the heck, both) and utilize their skills in a meaningful way.

Mr. Penzler is the proprietor of the Mysterious Bookshop in Manhattan and the series editor of the annual "Best American Mystery Stories." He can be reached at ottopenzler@mysteriousbookshop.com.