Requiem for an Assassin (John Rain, No. 6) - Hardcover

Introduction to the New Edition

As I mentioned in the new introduction to Redemption Games, every time I write a new book in a series, I begin by asking what happened to the characters in the previous book, and building on that. In Extremis, Rain and Delilah had been pitted against each other yet again, this time not by professional affiliations but by personal circumstances. Once again, their relationship proved more durable than the forces arrayed against them -- so much so, in fact, that when the book ended I imagined them living harmoniously together in Paris (or at least with whatever level of harmony is achievable when one partner in a romance is a contract killer and the other a Mossad operative).

So at the outset of The Killer Ascendant, I imagined Rain not just trying to get out of the life, but actually making progress, both body and mind. And then I imagined what would happen if something not just dragged him back in, but outright blasted him all the way back into the heart of darkness he'd been gradually leaving behind. Something like... Dox, getting kidnapped. With his life forfeit unless Rain carried our three "natural causes" hits as the kidnappers demanded. What would Rain do to save his friend? How far would he go? What would happen to him if he unleashed the killer inside himself, the very killer he'd been trying so hard to suppress?

Some of this thinking was spurred by an interesting conversation I had with my friend Marc MacYoung of No Nonsense Self Defense (nnsd.com -- bring a cup of coffee, you'll be there for a while). Marc had told me about his own efforts to get out of the life -- what was holding him back, what kept him going, what went wrong and what right -- and though I won't spoil anything here, I will say that Rain's insights in the last few pages of the book owe much to the truth of what Marc told me about what it means to take on the deadliest, most ruthless, most resourceful aspect of your own personality. The civilian you want to be, going up against the killer you are? A horrifying mismatch. But Marc found a way, and maybe Rain can, too (at least until the next book in the series, The Detachment). But how? Read on...