June 22, 2005

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Publication Date: Wednesday, June 22, 2005

Cover story: Killing them softly -- with his pen

By Renee Batti

Almanac News Editor

It's a day just like any other. Or so the innocent souls in the plaza might think.

Agent E. shuffles across the square and into the crowded bookstore, trying to look casual but furtively looking this way, then that. A short distance away, he spies a young, leggy photographer bending over her camera bag, lost in concentration.

"Pretty," he thinks. "And look at the size of those lenses -- you could kill somebody with those things."

In a flash, he disappears into an aisle of books. ...

... When his business is carried out, he exits the bookstore, makes his way to the joint next door, and sidles up to the bar.

He looks into the eyes of the stone-faced Tom-Dick-or-Harry behind the counter and calmly but firmly demands: "Soy milk latte. Decaf."

A what ?

"Oh no," he groans to the stunned person next to him, who has just recorded his words in her reporter's notebook. "My secret's out ..."

Fact or fiction?

Welcome to Barry Eisler's world. Or worlds, to be precise.

A former CIA agent and attorney, Menlo Park author Barry Eisler ducks in and out of reality regularly to create his wildly popular series of thrillers based on the character of John Rain, a paid assassin.

Just as the above scenario is a mix of fact and fiction, so too is his day-to-day life. Mr. Eisler may not really have ducked into an aisle at Kepler's bookstore in Menlo Park for nefarious purposes the other day, but he is a familiar presence there. Not is it only his "favorite bookstore in the whole world," it's also the place he's launched the three John Rain thrillers he's published since 2002.

And, that's the place he'll launch "Killing Rain," his latest in the series, on Thursday, June 23 -- the day the book hits bookstore shelves across the country. He will give a free reading and sign books beginning at 7:30 that night.

He's also a regular presence at the "joint next door" -- Cafe Borrone -- where he wrote an estimated 50 percent of his latest book. Those who attend the June 23 launch party at Kepler's can bring a purchased copy of the new book to Borrone's for a free glass of wine.

  Unusual visions

Mr. Eisler sips his decaf soy milk latte -- fact, not fiction -- one recent morning indoors at Borrone's. Indoors at the request of the photographer with the lethal lenses, who likes the available light at a table next to the window.

Does he really think of the lenses as potential weapons? "It's an occupational hazard," he explains. "You walk around seeing unusual ways to kill people."

His occupation, of course, is creator of the assassin Rain, whose specialty is killing people in ways that make their deaths appear natural.

Making Rain

The creation of Rain came about one day many years ago when Mr. Eisler slipped over the border between reality and fantasy while on his way to work in Tokyo, where he was living at the time. An image possessed him, he says -- an image of two men following another down a crowded Tokyo street.

"It was a vivid, powerful image that didn't go away," he says. He began to ask himself: "Who are those men? Why are they following the other man?"

Then it struck him. They were assassins -- a natural conclusion for a man who thinks of large camera lenses as lethal weapons and heavy pots and pans he spies at Macy's as "a home defense system."

From the flight of fancy on his commute came the germ of his first book, "Rain Fall." The opening chapter tracks the movements of two men tracking the movements of a third man down a crowded Tokyo street. But this time, one of those men has a name: John Rain.

He's a half-American, half-Japanese former U.S. military man who now kills on order, if the pay is right and certain criteria are met by those who hire him.

A secret life

Mr. Eisler's visions of menace and murder may have been influenced by the three years he spent working for the CIA. For years, his resume listed that time -- from 1989 to 1992 -- as employment with the government.

So now, only weeks after being given clearance to reveal that which he had been forbidden to reveal for 16 years, he almost chokes as he admits that his government service was with the CIA's Directorate of Operations, in a covert position.

He signed up with the spy agency after graduation from Cornell Law School in 1989. He lived most of his CIA years in Washington, D.C., and began practicing law after leaving the agency.

In 1993, Mr. Eisler moved to Tokyo for intensive training at the Kodokan International Judo Center, and to continue the study of the Japanese language he was immersed in while in the CIA.

His longtime love for the martial arts had its roots in a burning interest in "forbidden knowledge" he developed as a child, he explains in the biography posted on his Web site, barryeisler.com.

He cites a passage in a biography of Harry Houdini he read as a boy -- one quoting a cop saying that the world was lucky Houdini never turned to a life of crime because "he would have been difficult to catch and impossible to hold."

Mr. Eisler says he was "fascinated that someone could acquire knowledge people weren't supposed to have, knowledge that could make someone dangerous, and that fascination led to a lifelong study of martial arts, including western boxing and wrestling, Japanese judo and karate, and Brazilian jiu-jitsu; (and) a library of books on esoteric subjects such as methods of unarmed killing, lock picking, breaking and entry, spy craft, and other areas that the government would prefer only a select few to know ..."

Varied illumination

So when Mr. Eisler went to live in Tokyo for a year, his fascination with "forbidden" knowledge and interests was further sparked. Those elements of the city that intrigued him -- "its jazz clubs and whiskey bars; its back alleys; its wonderfully varied illumination; and its exotic tastes and scents" -- often provide the atmosphere for the "forbidden" action that occurs between the covers of his thrillers.

When he came back to the States after a year in Tokyo, his law firm, Weil Gotshal and Manges, offered to send him to its Menlo Park office. "At that point, California was more of a foreign country than Japan," he recalls.

But he and his wife thought about it for a while, then decided, "OK, we'll check it out like another foreign adventure," he says. That was in 1994, and it appears they're here to stay.

"What's not to love?" he asks, then answers himself: The weather's perfect, the food is great and the people are friendly.

The writing life

After moving to Menlo Park, Mr. Eisler continued working on the manuscript that he had begun after having his "vision" during his Tokyo commute. He had always been interested in writing, he says, but now he had a story he couldn't let go of.

When he was through rewriting the "Rain Fall" manuscript for the final time, he turned it over to an agent. The result was astonishing.

The agent suggested finding a publisher in Japan for the book's initial launch, and in the summer of 2001, he met with several publishers. A bidding war ensued.

Then, a plum fell from the tree into his lap. The winner of the bidding war wanted a two-book deal.

Mr. Eisler quit his job.

"Rain Fall" has been translated into a number of languages, as have his two other books, "Hard Rain" and "Rain Storm."

Those three books have been optioned for film by Barrie Osborne, producer of the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy.

With the release of "Killing Rain" this week, Mr. Eisler begins a 25-city tour that will take him all over the country.

John Rain fans may be troubled by the name of the new book. Is this curtains for Rain?

Well, he just signed a contract with Putnam, he notes. "Let's just say there are two sequels in the works."

Book launch at Kepler's

Barry Eisler will talk about and sign his latest book, "Killing Rain," at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, June 23, at Kepler's bookstore, 1010 El Camino Real in Menlo Park. A purchased copy of the book will be good for a free glass of wine next door at Cafe Borrone after the reading. For information, call 324-4321.

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