The Killer Collective, by Barry Eisler

Thomas & Mercer, 2019

ISBN: 978-1-5039-0426-2

Available: Hardcover, paperback, Kindle edition, audiobook, MP3 CD

If you are looking for a good action story populated by ex-Special Forces people who destroy anyone and everything in their way, you’ve come to the right place.  Author Barry Eisler has already written two series of books, one starring ex-Green Beret/CIA spook John Rain, and the other focused on hard-nosed Seattle cop Livia Lone, who specializes in investigating brutal sex crimes. (think Law & Order: SVU)  This is the first time he has merged both characters into the same book.  Note: if you have never read any of the other books (as I have not) you can still read The Killer Collective as a stand-alone novel and understand the story.  However, there are frequent references to the plots of other novels in the series.  The author does throw in enough that you can get the general gist of how the characters know each other, but your overall understanding of the characters and why they act the way they do would probably be enhanced if you had read the other books.

The plot: Detective Livia Lone and two other investigators are busy tracking down the members of a online kiddie-porn ring, and find that six of its members also happen to be members of the U.S. Secret Service.  Naturally, the government won’t admit such a thing, so the FBI shuts down her investigation, and she quickly becomes a target of mercenary killers bent on eliminating anyone involved with the investigation.

Meanwhile, John Rain, now an assassin for hire, has his own set of problems with people who want him dead– people with a lot of money and a lot of firepower.  Through individuals known to both Lone and Rain, the separate plot threads tie together in the first third of the book.  The rest is about survival and making those who are responsible pay.  This review is simplifying the plot a bit, so as not to give away too much.  It’s actually a good deal more complex.

Each chapter is written from the point of view of one of the characters, and not just that of Lone or Rain: at least four other characters get a turn or two.  Even more unusual, all of them are written from the third person perspective except John Rain’s, which are written from the first person.  Surprisingly, it isn’t confusing, and really helps the story, as the characters, despite all being trained killers, are quite unique.  Carl Dox is one of the most memorable personalities, as he injects some needed humor and emotion, keeping the ‘collective’ members from being too similar.  The story itself is excellent, and rarely moves in a straight line: there are plenty of twists and turns.   There is a lot of intrigue, and it’s livened up because the members of Rain’s collective are not a group completely united behind a cause.   Some of them basically despise each other because they have been on opposite sides in previous special operations in other books.  Half the fun is seeing how they struggle to even tolerate each other, despite needing to work together to survive.  How do you work with someone you previously tried to kill?

The action itself is first rate– the author clearly knows his stuff.  This isn’t just your standard “shoot all bad guys in an insanely bloody firefight”  book, there is a lot of meticulous planning by the characters that goes into each action sequence.  No one just rushes in, guns blazing.  All the confrontations are planned out down to the tiniest detail by Rain and his cohorts, who don’t want to leave anything to chance.  Just setting up a meeting to talk to someone who can provide information requires a lot of work, in order to prevent coming out on the wrong end of a double-cross.   The reader will be amazed at the level of detail, and it all sounds like it came out of actual operations run by real-life special agents.  The author used to work for the CIA, and he’s clearly drawing on his background.  Pulling off the confrontations in this book and making them seem true to life would be tough for most authors, but Eisler does it with ease.  There was one time when the action got so detailed in terms of character movement that it did get a bit confusing, but that can be easily overlooked, since everything else was so well done.  For pure excitement that holds your interest, this is close to seamless.

If you like stories with a plot like the intertwined coils of a serpent and characters that are larger than life in terms of their ability, but still human in terms of their actions, this book should not be missed.  It should be in the fiction section of every library.  Highly recommended.

Contains:  violence, profanity

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson