Requiem For an Assassin (2007)

Once upon a time, things were easy for John Rain. Or as easy as life could be for an assassin. Yet now, in his sixth outing, Barry Eisler's Requiem For an Assassin, Rain's formed too many attachments, and they're causing him grief. His pal — a Marine sniper named Dox — has been kidnapped. Unless Rain extinguishes three specific people in a short amount of time, Dox is a goner. Meanwhile, Rain's girl, Delilah, is urging him to give up his deadly and itinerant life, the only one he's known. With a mix of nifty black-ops scenes and moments of emotional explosiveness, Eisler proves himself to be as coolly efficient a writer as his protagonist is a killer. B+