Three Assassins

Paperback, 432 pages

English language

Published Aug. 28, 2022 by Penguin Random House.

ISBN:
978-1-78730-321-8
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OCLC Number:
1314043699

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4 stars (4 reviews)

Suzuki is just an ordinary man until his wife is murdered. When he discovers the criminal gang responsible he leaves behind his life as a maths teacher and joins them, looking for a chance to take his revenge. What he doesn't realise is that he's about to get drawn into a web of unusual professional assassins, each with their own agenda.

The Whale convinces his victims to take their own lives using just his words. The Cicada is a talkative and deadly knife expert. The elusive Pusher dispatches his targets in deadly traffic accidents.

Suzuki must take each of them on, in order to try to find justice and keep his innocence in a world of killers.

4 editions

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

Review of 'Three Assassins' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

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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rated it

4 stars
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rated it

5 stars
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rated it

3 stars

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