Three Assassins
A Novel
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4.2 • 61 Ratings
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
“Three Assassins feels like a fever dream that makes sense when you’re in it, but whose strange contours linger long after you wake up.” —New York Times
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.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
As lean and fast-paced as a classic pulp thriller, Three Assassins dials the action up to 11 and then breaks off the knob. Like the title says, the story revolves around three assassins: Suzuki, a revenge-fueled novice on his first assignment; Cicada, a fast-talking cynic who thinks his boss is exploiting him; and the Whale, who just talks his victims into killing themselves. This trio ends up on the trail of the Pusher, who may or may not have knocked off the ne’er-do-well son of a prominent Tokyo crime boss. Throw in a guy who speaks almost entirely in quotes from pop songs, a homeless encampment turned vigilante force, and quirky scenes from Tokyo’s neon-soaked urban underground, and you know you’re in the capable hands of Kotaro Isaka, whose Bullet Train was a black-humored, ultraviolent delight. Three Assassins is even faster, even funnier, and even more off-kilter.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Former math teacher Suzuki, the protagonist of this engrossing thriller from Isaka (Bullet Train), has an opportunity for revenge two years after a drunk driver killed his wife. He's concealed his past to join Fräulein, a company that ostensibly sells beauty products for women. In fact, the firm is a criminal organization, and its CEO, Terahara, is the father of the man who killed Suzuki's wife. Suzuki hopes his position will enable him to confront the killer, but then his supervisor informs him that he's under suspicion and can only prove his loyalty to Fräulein by murdering two people. Things get only more complicated when someone pushes Terahara's son into traffic, where he's fatally run over. Suzuki's assigned to track down the culprit. Meanwhile, two other killers are at work: the Whale, who has coerced more than 30 people to kill themselves, and the Cicada, who slaughters a family after its youngest member burns a homeless person to death. Isaka makes what could be an over-the-top narrative work through his depiction of an everyman protagonist in way over his head. Fans of Bullet Train won't be disappointed.
