Three Assassins

A Novel

eBook, 288 pages

English language

Published Aug. 28, 2022 by Abrams, Inc..

ISBN:
978-1-64700-782-9
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OCLC Number:
1338132425

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(4 reviews)

Three Assassins is the high-stakes, high-style, and utterly propulsive follow-up to Kotaro Isaka’s international bestseller, Bullet Train, a Crime Reads “Most Anticipated Book of 2021.”

Suzuki is an ordinary man until his wife is murdered. To get answers and his revenge, Suzuki abandons his law-abiding lifestyle and takes a low-level job with a front company operated by the crime gang Maiden, who are responsible for his wife’s death. Before long, Suzuki finds himself caught up in a network of quirky and highly effective assassins:

The Cicada is a knife expert. The Pusher nudges people into oncoming traffic. The Whale whispers bleak aphorisms to his victims until they take their own lives.

Intense and electrifying, Three Assassins delivers a wild ride through the criminal underworld of Tokyo, populated by contract killers who are almost superhumanly good at their jobs.

4 editions

reviewed Three Assassins by Kotaro Isaka (Assassins, #2)

Review of 'Three Assassins' on 'Goodreads'

The thriller tag may have led me astray in terms of expectations for this book, but nonetheless I enjoyed it for what it was. It mainly follows three characters embroiled in a "crime industry" in Japan that reads like a cartoon's idea of what industrialized crime would entail. Every assassin has it's killing gimmick and a set of beliefs with more holes than swiss cheese. We follow two of them and a "main character" that's out for revenge. Despite the lack of tension (or thrills), the book is really well written/translated, has a quick pace and builds a lot of momentum. It was hard to relate to the characters, but I can appreciate reading about a bunch of weirdos with flawed belief systems be propelled towards bad decision making. The reliance on coincidence to intertwine them reminded me a bit of Tokyo Godfathers.

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