Barry Eisler does not disappoint. A taut thriller, filled with technical accuracy which give the new characters expansion, but also gives the reader a flash of the old favourites

Barry Eisler is a favorite of mine since the first Rain books. This third crossover novel with diverse characters from previous novels is not is best book, but is well entertaining, and it is always a joy to reconnect with Rain and Livia Lone in particular. A engaging thriller, but not a masterpiece.

I had a hard time getting into the book and it wasn't really my cup of tea but I do like Eisler's writing style. I think a lot of people will be drawn to the book just from the cover.

I have read Eisler starting with Killer Rain all those years back, and he is a solid thriller writer, who knows his stuff. As others loose their touch (cough - Child - cough), Eisler is still solid and reilable to deliver a great thrill ride from the first page to the last.

I don't a have anything new to add to the thousands of existing ratings and reviews for this one. Eisler is well established and a safe bet for thriller fans. Recommended.

I really appreciate the free review copy!!

The Chaos Kind, a crossover story incorporating characters from two of the author's earlier series, is a good read. For anyone who has followed the adventures of John Rain et al, or of Livia Lone (who has an apt surname), the character interaction holds strong appeal.

The main plot device? Meh, not so much. The arrest of a wealthy political influencer -- who for decades hosted powerful men in his various mansions, filled with underage girls and (oops!) hidden cameras -- has virtually every male in the federal executive and legislative branches quaking in his posh footwear. This man cannot be allowed to expose his (their) secrets!

This novel isn't as tightly plotted as the earlier books, but Eisler fans will appreciate an answer to their queries about what John Rain is up to these days. I'd score it higher in timeliness (Me, Too, anyone?) that in plausibility. Still, I loved Livia's input: She was much more concerned about the effect the tapes, if made public, would have on the victims (the very young women) than on the famous men and their careers.

Thanks to NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer for an advance readers copy.

Barry Eisler continues gripping storytelling in this new book. Ideal for fans of well-written soy and action stories.

The Chaos Kind
October 11, 2021
Book Review

The Chaos Kind
Barry Eisler
reviewed by Lou Jacobs



readersremains.com | Goodreads


Anticipation of Barry Eisler’s next novel is always a guilty pleasure. It’s exceedingly difficult not to devour it rather than savor the experience.

Eisler has managed to bring together his “beloved” band of killers and operatives for one righteous mission to assault the forces that would allow and protect the heinous monsters behind child trafficking. In a cinematic narrative akin to The Magnificent Seven (or its antecedent, The Seven Samurai) he craftily assembles his band of seven beloved assassins.

Andrew Schrader, one of the world’s most influential financiers, has for decades cultivated and collected the allegiance of powerful people, such as politicians, corporate titans and media barons. He has wined and dined them, and provided underage girls for their pleasure. Unbeknownst to these sleazy men of industry and politics was the presence of hidden cameras in all the bedrooms of his six homes. Captured on videos in high fidelity were the depravity of these duplicitous scum.

Schrader assembled these videos as a get-out-of-jail-free card. He was arrested by the FBI, because of an investigation spear-headed by Assistant US Attorney, Alondra Diaz. She intends to prosecute him for trafficking and racketeering. He had been under indictment for sex trafficking with underage girls in the past, but it was buried, and he was allowed to plead to a much lesser charge.

The most powerful men of the US National security state do not want him prosecuted. They have arranged for the imminent demise of Diaz by coercing Marvin Manus, an ex-military and CIA trained assassin asset. They will expose his inglorious past history to his newfound family unit, unless he complies. This despicable cabal is comprised of Pierce Devereaux, the Director of National Intelligence, along with Uriah Hobbs, the US Attorney General—both obviously afraid of the airing of these videos for personal reasons—and with aid in plotting and directing the necessary violence by CIA Director, Lisa Rispel. Rispel has not only set up the kill of Diaz by Manus, but also has arranged for his assassination afterward.

The assemblage of the brotherhood initiates by CIA Director Tom Kanezaki, who enlists the aid of his previous associate, Dox, a former Marine sniper and black-ops veteran Daniel Larson, with the unique assignment of stopping the assassination of Diaz and keeping her alive. Sequentially added in unique fashion are the assemblage of the team. Not only is Manus enlisted, but then Livia Lone, a Seattle Police Department sex-crime detective, who herself was trafficked to America as a thirteen-year-old along with her younger sister, and lastly John Rain and his paramour, Delilah. John is a mixed-race assassin who specializes in kills by “natural cause” appearing deaths. Delilah is an ex-Mossad operative who specialized in honeytrap operations. They were living in apparent harmony and spending time between Kamakura and Paris. John was the go-to man for both the Japanese government and the CIA. Both were reportedly “retired.” The group was intent on thwarting the efforts of “the powerful” to obtain and destroy these videos, or to use them as blackmail. The group was more concerned with stopping the destruction of the lives of these underage girls if their image was splashed across the internet.

Eisler proves to be a masterful storyteller, as he spins a fascinating and relentless tale of escalating tension, building to an amazing denouement. The narrative moves at a frenetic pace forcing the reader to turn the pages at a breakneck speed. There is no time to catch your breath between the tactical planning and ensuing violence. This gem can be enjoyed as a standalone due to the seamlessly supplied backstory.

Thanks to NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer Publications for supplying an Uncorrected Proof of this high-octane non-stop thriller in exchange for an honest review.

When Barry Eisler is up at bat, you know he is going to knock it out of the ballpark!

I discovered Barry Eisler's John Rain books years ago in a very unusual way. Ages ago, I was sent a copy of "Killing Rain" now published as Redemption Games though a product testing site. From there I was hooked and dove into reading the previous books and then future books in the series. I believe I have only missed one. My point - This is an addictive series with likeable characters - Dox has always been my favorite - who doesn't like a good-ol-boy?

Rain, Dox, and Delilah are/were assassins. They are experts at what they do and even though some are trying to have a quieter life, well, they keep getting pulled back into the game. Plus, there is Livia Lone, a Seattle sex crimes detective with a tragic past, who…well she and Dox....nuff said.

Anyway, the gist is they team up with black-ops veteran Daniel Larison and Marvin Manus (if you have read this series, you will know these names) If you have not read the series - Hop to it, it's worth the investment in your time when you start from the beginning but be sure to read the Livia Lone books as well.

This time, they are taking on some very powerful people who have committed crimes against children. Yes, you are going to get some strong Jeffrey Epstein vibes in this book.

I loved reading about the characters again. This book is full of action and intrigue. Eisler uses what he knows. He is a black belt who spent three years in a covert position with the CIA. So, if some of the fight scenes, weaponry, and ops seen real, it is because he is writing what he knows.

Fans of both series and Eisler will not be disappointed. When I see he has a new book out, I try to get my hands (and eyes) on them. Eisler delivers every time. He does such a fantastic job describing the action that I can see it playing out in my mind.

Could this book be read as a stand-alone? I guess, but I would not recommend it. There are a lot of characters from both book series, and they all have interesting back stories. You will miss out on inside jokes and mannerisms of the characters.

I thoroughly enjoyed it and was glad to see that the "gang" was all here in this book.

Intense, Action packed and riveting!


Thank you to Thomas & Mercer and NetGalley who provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All the thoughts and opinions are my own.

I've read many books by Barry Eisler and have enjoyed them all. This one, like all of them was easy to read and fast paced. Good characters and pacing. I highly recommend this book.

This is an exceptional read. I’ve loved every book that Barry Eisler has written. His characters, Carl Dox and John Rain are so different from each other, but so incredible at the same time. Definitely two of my favourite characters. I knew after the first chapter that I would enjoy this story, and I certainly wasn’t disappointed. A very entertaining and tense plot.
Carl Dox was a killing machine, a man usually sent to eliminate people. As an ex-Marine sniper, he was very good at his job, so he was surprised when he was sent to protect someone instead of killing them. Alondra Diaz was a woman on a mission, as the assistant US Attorney she was very keen to see Andrew Schrader stay behind bars, for his horrendous crimes against young girls. Unfortunately, there were some powerful men that didn’t want this case to see the light of day, as they were sure to be taken down with Schrader as well. No doubt someone was going to die.
If you are after an entertaining and captivating read, then I would strongly recommend this book. 5/5 Star Rating.

The Chaos Kind by Barry Eisler
John Rain #11 & Livia Lone #3.5

Chaos, indeed! This book had me writing names down at first trying to keep them all straight but very quickly their characters and personalities emerged so that keeping them straight was no longer difficult at all. In fact, I was quickly reading to see what would happen next and what part each player would slot into as the story progressed.

What I liked:
* No trouble understanding the plot even though I have only read one previous book by this author.
* The plot, writing, and character development
* The location(s)
* That I could hate the bad guys
* That I could love the lethal team that worked together to thwart some very evil people
* The planning that went into various ops the team executed
* The action sequences and how real they seemed
* The interactions between the team and how they communicated, grew to respect one another over time, and worked together as equals but with specific capabilities within the group.
* That the women were treated as equals in the group
* That there were some romantic couples and some of the team that still may have a chance for romance in the future
* The “new blood” that might join the team in the future
* I would list the individual characters and their strengths, what I liked, etc BUT there were many and I liked them all…it would take too long. I will say that I would love to have them as friends and definitely would love to have them with me if ever in a tight spot.
* Dash: young man who has great potential in the future. Also admire his mother and her partner
* Wondering whether or not Rain and Delilah will really retire or not
* Thinking about how fine a line there sometimes is between fact and fiction
* Thinking about who will be in the next team that will continue the series
* Knowing that there will be another book because…there were a few left standing that really need to be felled.

What I didn’t like:
* The people and events I was meant not to like
* Knowing that the evil people in this story are no doubt found in real life doing equally reprehensible things
* Having to wait to find out what happens next.

Did I like this book? Yes
Would I read more in this series? Definitely!

Thank you to NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer for the ARC – This is my honest review.

5 Stars

This is part of a series. I started reading the series many, many years ago and John Rain was the main character. I loved him and looked forward to new books. Then other characters were added, and they became part of the team. I loved those books too. For many years I read every book by Barry Eisler and loved them all.

Then I missed a few books and it has been a few years since I have read one. So reading this book, it took me a while to get back on the groove of who these people all were. This story was told from the point of view of 6 or 7 characters and the story alternated. That really added some fun perspective...

But...

It took me a while to get the flow, and to remember who every person was. I can't imagine if I had never read any books in this series before - I am pretty sure I would have been really confused. There is very little back story to tell you who these people are, so if you have not read any of the past books, I can see getting easily confused. There are assassins, good guys from the CIA, NSA, bad guys from these agencies, independent contract killers- I can see not knowing who was part of the good guys, and who was not.

That being said, if you have read this series, and love the characters, then you will love this book. The gang is back in action. This is a quick read, and has some plot really relatable to current events. And it makes you wonder - how much of this really goes on in real life?

I want to thank the author, the publisher and #netgalley for the ARC which did not impact my review.

A good book that brings a lot of the characters back from previous stories. It brought up good parallels to the Epstein case and it moved along at a good clip. I really enjoyed it and hope to read more from the author in the future. It forces the reader to face the idea that powerful people can do some horrible things.

This book was a ride! Brings all the characters back. Read most of it in one sitting! Brings in the Epstein case and has it affected many high up in government. Kinda makes you think about the real life case. These books are not for the light read but they are awesome.

I was given a copy from Netgalley in exchange for an unbiased review.

almost 4 ☆
"Of course there was a "deep state," or whatever else people might want to call it - not just in America but in every country. How could a society function without a semipermanent core of experts committed to stable governance?"

The Chaos Kind is the type of fiction that either has the QAnon folks nod knowingly or just makes the rest of us more cynical. Oh oops, sorry, this is a work of fiction. Andrew Schrader - a Jeffrey Epstein-esque figure - has just been arrested in the Seattle, Washington region. Despite being indicted for human trafficking in South Carolina six years earlier, he barely had his wrist slapped and has thus continued his habits in a different part of the country. His prior brush with the law did teach him to create his own safeguards. Since he is very rich both in money and in political contacts, Schrader chose to film secretly the powerful men who attended his parties and took advantage of the underage victims.

Perhaps Schrader is too clever for his own good. Because although he is locked up in a federal prison pending the case spearheaded by US Assistant Attorney General Alondra Diaz, Schrader has painted a huge bullseye on himself.

"Denial has no survival value. If you're going to play, you have to at least recognize what the game is."

In The Chaos Kind, many different parties come out of the woodwork because these videos signify massive power for the holder. And once Schrader's lawyer informs the US Attorney General about the footage, it's the catalyst for a series of battles among a veritable army of assassins and black ops personnel from the US intelligence community.

"... but of course in the intelligence business good [guy] was a relative term. Relative and flexible."

Since Schrader seems a bit challenging to access while he's in federal prison, Alondra becomes a more viable target for the men who don't want to find themselves starring in rape videos. Tom Kanezaki decides to act independently of his orders from CIA Director Lisa Rispel and instead to use his network of assassins to protect Alondra instead.

"I don't like the order of battle now. We need to shake up the board and good. Because when order is your enemy, chaos is your friend."

The Chaos Kind is my first novel by Barry Eisler. Given my unfamiliarity with these characters - John Rain, Livia Lone, Dox, et al - I may have missed the insider jokes, but there are enough detail and background to establish their skillsets and roles. So yes, this can be read as a standalone.

This novel was fast-paced action punctuated by very cold-blooded scenes of killings and seasoned with emotional insights into the many characters. In terms of the plot, the Jeffrey Epstein-esque angle is not original but to be fair, Eisler has written about human trafficking of underage victims through his series featuring Livia Lone. Clearly, there is far too much violence directed at females in this world, and the US is not exempt. For me, this plotline sustained my interest until the end when I felt that the ending was dreamy wish-fulfillment. The finale's insouciance with actions and consequences just didn't seem to fit in with the preceding storyline.

As my introduction to Eisler's novels, it is well-written and for the most part, the action and characters feel authentic. I like the ensemble cast here and its diversity in terms of genders, ethnicities, and abilities. The strong characterizations ensure that The Chaos Kind is more than just a long sequence of dispassionate assassinations sewn together by a thin plot thread. And as another first, this fiction writer provides a long Notes section.

Thank you to Thomas and Mercer and Netgalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review. Quotations in this review are from an uncorrected proof and may differ from the published version, released on October 1, 2021.

Barry Eisler puts the band back together Avengers style for The Chaos Kind, reuniting his various series characters like John Rain, Dox, Livia Lone, and Larison, along with the addition of the deaf killer, Manus, from The God's Eye.

Initially, Dox and Larison are hired to stop Manus from killing a prosecutor intent on putting Andrew Schrader behind bars for as long as humanly possible. Schrader's a wealthy businessman who has sexually trafficked children amongst the United States's most powerful men, and he has videos of those men's crimes that will be made public if he isn't released. Those videos, and their value for blackmail, quickly become central to either to keeping Dox, Larison, and Manus alive or destroying them all as they and their allies and loved ones become targets for the complicit Director of Intelligence and CIA assassins.

As a former CIA employee, lawyer, and black belt in Judo, Eisler brings a specialized knowledge and air of authenticity to his plotting and storytelling. From the kill scenes, which explore the physiological reactions of the killer and are no less brutal for it, to the sometimes-subtle and sometimes not-so subtle manipulations of operators and those who walk the halls of power, there's an intimate sense of realism about it all.

Of course, we've seen some of this realism play out first-hand, albeit at a distance for most of us, in the newspapers and on TV news programs. Schrader is, you may have already guessed, a riff on Jeffrey Epstein, a financier and sex offender who sexually trafficked children and, like Schrader, had numerous cameras installed in his homes to record the rape of children by prominent, wealthy, and powerful men for blackmail. In case the links between Schrader and Epstein are not clear, Eisler repeatedly reinforces the connections between the two numerous times over the course of The Chaos Kind. The needless repetition of this fact is really the only complaint I have. In the early parts of the book, it felt like every time Schrader's name was mentioned, somebody had to say (paraphrasing, of course), "Oh, he's just like Jeffrey Epstein who also prostituted children and recorded their rapists!", which quickly grew annoying. Thankfully, those forced moments did ease up as the book progressed, but I wouldn't have minded a firmer editorial hand to assure Eisler that we really do get it!

Aside from the unnecessary hand-holding early on, there's not much to fault The Chaos Kind for. Eisler's been around the block more than a few times and very quickly became a favorite of mine when I picked up a copy of Rain Fall nearly 20 years ago. He knows what he's doing and how to do it exceedingly well, giving readers impromptu, in-depth, but never overwhelming, insight into the lives and methodologies of assassins, cops (who moonlight as assassins), black-book operators and kill squads, and the men and women who seek to hold the levers of power for their own, usually malicious, ends. As with his past titles, Eisler shows a knack for putting us directly at the center of this mysterious, hidden world of secret killers - and secrets worth killing for - and does so thrillingly.

The Chaos Kind continues Mr. Eisler's bringing characters from others of his novels together. The Killer Elite did that extremely well with characters from at least four "series". This novel adds the characters from God's Eye to those from Killer Elite.
It was good to see so many characters from past books making meaningful appearances here. It would have been easy to have some as just walk ons that did not add to the story. Mr. Eisler ably avoided that.
Even more impressive, to me, were two secondary characters from the Livia Lone books that are shown only briefly but really added to my enjoyment.