Previously published as Requiem for an Assassin 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 leave the killing business behind. And then he receives a message from rogue CIA operative Jim Hilger: We have your friend Dox. Do as we tell you, or he dies. For a professional like Rain, the choice ought to be easy: do the job―a series of three hits―and save his friend and partner. But how does Rain know Hilger won’t kill Dox, anyway, once the assignment is complete? How does he know each of the hits isn’t simultaneously a setup for Rain himself? Most of all, how can he control the killing rage Hilger’s lethal game of extortion reignites inside him? From the deceptively tranquil beaches of Bali, to the backstreets and boulevards of Paris, to the urban canyons of Silicon Valley and New York and the old killing fields of Vietnam, Rain must grapple with his age, his enemies, and, most of all, with the killer inside himself in a battle not even Rain can hope to survive intact. The Killer Ascendant was previously published as Requiem for an Assassin , the sixth in the bestselling John Rain assassin series. Pity John Rain. All the Japanese American contract killer wants to do is retire and live happily with his girlfriend, a beautiful Mossad agent. But little things keep getting in the way. For instance, his close friend and sometime partner, Dox, has been kidnapped. The abductor is Jim Hilger, a CIA agent whose schemes have been foiled by Rain a few times in the past, and who is now looking to use Dox's life as leverage to force Rain to commit a series of assassinations. But Rain is nobody's fool: he knows he can't trust Hilger to live up to his end of the deal, and there's only one way to make sure Dox stays healthy. Readers may wonder how many stories there are to tell about a hit man who wants to get out of the life, but so far Eisler hasn't run out of believable scenarios. This one is as good as its five forerunners, and here's hoping the author has a few more stories to tell. David Pitt. Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved “Like McNab’s Nick Stone and Child’s Jack Reacher, John Rain is a classic character” ― The Times “... a terrific, fun read, full of modern spy craft (Eisler worked for the CIA for a while), exotic locales, hot sex and violence. Not to mention an extremely well-defined character in John Rain, who seems like a pretty good guy, given his career.” ―San Jose Mercury News “Eisler is exactly my kind of writer and his deadly main character John Rain is exactly my kind of guy―highly recommended.” ―Lee Child Introduction to the New Edition As I mentioned in the new introduction to Redemption Games , every time I write a new book in a series, I begin by asking what happened to the characters in the previous book, and building on that. In Extremis, Rain and Delilah had been pitted against each other yet again, this time not by professional affiliations but by personal circumstances. Once again, their relationship proved more durable than the forces arrayed against them -- so much so, in fact, that when the book ended I imagined them living harmoniously together in Paris (or at least with whatever level of harmony is achievable when one partner in a romance is a contract killer and the other a Mossad operative). So at the outset of The Killer Ascendant , I imagined Rain not just trying to get out of the life, but actually making progress, both body and mind. And then I imagined what would happen if something not just dragged him back in, but outright blasted him all the way back into the heart of darkness he'd been gradually leaving behind. Something like... Dox, getting kidnapped. With his life forfeit unless Rain carried our three "natural causes" hits as the kidnappers demanded. What would Rain do to save his friend? How far would he go? What would happen to him if he unleashed the killer inside himself, the very killer he'd been trying so hard to suppress? Some of this thinking was spurred by an interesting conversation I had with my friend Marc MacYoung of No Nonsense Self Defense (nnsd.com -- bring a cup of coffee, you'll be there for a while). Marc had told me about his own efforts to get out of the life -- what was holding him back, what kept him going, what went wrong and what right -- and though I won't spoil anything here, I will say that Rain's insights in the last few pages of the book owe much to the truth of what Marc told me about what it means to take on the deadliest, most ruthless, most resourceful aspect of your own personality. The civilian you want to be, going up against the killer you are? A horrifying mismatch. But Marc found a way, and maybe Rain can, too (at least unti