Barry Eisler Fangirl Post
The Chaos Kind is a tight, tense tale of vengeance featuring some of my favorite fictional characters: John Rain, Livia Lone, Dox, Delilah, Larison and Kanezaki. Friendship, love and allegiance elevate this Barry Eisler novel over other popular thrillers and while everyone has their moment to shine, for me Dox steals the show.
Dox is a military sniper turned freelancer. He’s big and strong and I always imagined him as a Nick Nolte type circa North Dallas Forty. This Texan is chatty, charming, loyal and lethal.
The plot of The Chaos Kind revolves around a group of cruel degenerates involved in child exploitation. They’re as powerful as they are depraved and, unluckily for them, there are people who refuse to let it slide. The novel delivers a ration of sweet retribution, but it also asks and answers questions about justice and what can be done, underscoring what an overwhelming problem this is.
With a perpetrator in custody things look good for justice but there’s a problem: there’s video evidence of the abuse involving people at the highest levels of the government and the videos are being used as blackmail. They’ll do anything to cover their asses and that’s where’s where our avengers come in.
Livia is a sex crimes detective and the voice of the victims – she’s single-minded in her defense of them. She enlists the help of Dox via Kanezaki, a CIA insider who also operates outside the Agency, building his bank of connections and information. Dox is Livia’s beau, but their relationship is entirely on her terms. (The scenes between Livia and Dox verge on painful. They’re both trying but she has walls up. He’s so earnest and thoughtful…who says a sniper can’t be romantic?)
Rain is trying to retire and build a life with Delilah (former Mossad) but they both drop everything for the job. Larison is a killer on par with Dox but without the genial attitude. He’s starting to soften, though, which was nice to see.
Eisler delivers action and anxiety in scene after scene, including a bloody public run-in with assassins, a scary cat-and-mouse play in a school library, and a chilling encounter with a ruthless government moll and her brutes. Literally breathtaking.
The subject matter of The Chaos Kind isn’t easy to digest but it’s important not to turn away. With Eisler you get the fiction and the reality: most of his books have detailed notes that go chapter by chapter, listing recommended readings, links and recs. Lots of rabbit holes to dive into…
If this is your introduction to the world of Dox, Rain and the rest you won’t be lost, but I predict you’ll want to go back and sink into Eisler’s other books. Lucky you!
**********************
Because I read most of the John Rain novels before I started this blog in 2020, Eisler only has a couple of mentions. I wrote about two new-to-me books in my Fall 2023 post Comfort Reading or What I did this summer
All The Devils (2019) (Livia Lone #4) and Livia Lone (2016)
Barry Eisler is another author I revisited although the books I read were happily new to me. His John Rain books are among my favorites of all time. I’m just gonna say it:
John Rain > John Wick. It’s a matter of finesse.
Rain is a half-Japanese half-American killer who is good at making it look natural. He’s a tormented stone-cold mechanic who has trouble fitting in and figuring out where he belongs. Throughout the series he connects with a few fellow spies, killers and contractors and establishes a family of sorts. One of them is a badass woman named Livia Lone.
I read All the Devils first, which features Livia and then went back to the first book that details her sad story, Livia Lone. Let’s just say there’s a reason she’s intensely focused on stopping child traffickers. Eisler’s books are action-packed and always filled with little tidbits of spy craft and personal safety measures – things you might tuck away and use one day IRL. His fight scenes are so perfectly described that you can see it all happening in your mind’s eye. I’m glad I remembered to check on what Eisler’s been up to.
bookthrasher 