Three Assassins

A propulsive thriller from the Japanese bestseller and award-winning author of Bullet Train

By: Kotaro Isaka, Sam Malissa - translator

Narrated by: Adam Sims

Brought to you by Penguin.

THEIR MISSION IS MURDER. HIS IS REVENGE. A propulsive new thriller from the bestselling author of BULLET TRAIN.

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.

PRAISE FOR BULLET TRAIN:

'Unlike anything you're likely to have read before...white-hot with double-crosses' Financial Times

'Entertaining...high-speed...with lots of twists and turns...it has a Tarantino-meets-the-Coen-Brothers feel to it'The Times

Part high-octane thriller, part farce, this is an unusual and thoroughly enjoyable read' Guardian

The action accelerates up and down the ten carriages but the question is: who will get off alive? Daily Mail

© Kotaro Isaka 2022 (P) Penguin Audio 2022

Critic reviews

Three Assassins...showcases Kotaro Isaka's Tarantinoesque blend of offbeat wit and stylised violence (James Owen)

[A] mesmerising tale of how life is simultaneously cheap and precious, and the past catches up with us all. (Laura Wilson)

Highly entertaining... grips with plenty of twists before delivering a stylish and fitting finale (Jon Coates)

Delivers an unusual journey. The eponymous killers - along with a man bent on payback
for the death of his wife - are engaged in a dance of death

Isaka knows how to keep his readers on their toes. His characters are colourful, varied and morally despicable.

Entertaining...high-speed...with lots of twists and turns...it has a Tarantino-meets-the-Coen-Brothers feel to it

Unlike anything you're likely to have read before...white-hot with double-crosses

High-octane...an unusual and thoroughly enjoyable read

Ghibli if it was thriller

I love how everything is so surreal but at the same time raw with human emotions and full packed with actions. I easily fell in love with each main character despite their questionable moral and personal choices - and the voice of the reader captured them well.