Kabuto is trying to escape the hold his handler, The Doctor, has over him. To do this Kabuto has to complete other jobs set for him which puts lives on the line.
As a massive fan of this author’s previous books I was very excited to read this and I was not let down. It’s a rollercoaster ride of a read from start to finish.
Thank you to netgalley and the publishers for this arc in exchange for my honest review.

Very exciting and a well paced novel that steadily drives us towards an incredible conclusion! Another great novel from Kotaro Isaka. I would be rather happy if this one was made into a movie too, just like Bullet Train!

I've been a big fan of Kotaro Isaka since reading Bullet Train (which was then 'Hollywoodised' in an entertaining enough film that went for big crashes and explosions with a pretty much completely western cast when really the book worked better). I enjoyed his follow up, Three Assassins - another tale of contract killers in Tokyo, so I was thrilled to get a copy of his new book The Mantis.
The protagonist of the novel, Kabuto, is a father, husband, office worker and assassin. The order of his responsibilities is the core of the novel. Kabuto wants out of the killing business. His doctor, who hands out prescriptions to him, is insistent he does not stop his 'treatment'. Oh, and the doctor is his handler, the prescriptions are jobs, and if Kabuto does stop 'treatment', he and his family could be at serious risk...
There are call backs to the previous novels and key characters - we're in some sort of Isaka universe here where one might start to think you can't visit Tokyo without every second person being a killer of some sort.
There are similar themes explored in the previous books - family duty and honour, disaffection with one's role in life, And of course, hit jobs.
But The Mantis is, for me, the strongest of Isaka's works in English so far. It's a very good translation - as were the other books, that captures the Japanese style and essence, while being, I would say, more accessible than Three Assassins. It's also, stylistically, more adventurous than the previous books. There's a 'twist' 60% through the books that affects everything and everyone in the story, and how we read the book that really worked for me. (No spoilers). For western readers there are a couple of key elements that might be considered 'tropes' or 'cliiches'. But viewing through the lens of Japanese, these are challenging and quite different from anything else I have read.
There's the same dark humour and deceptively simplistic dialogue mixed in with some philosophical and historical ponderings that I really enjoyed. Kabuto is a likable, if emotionally schizophrenic, character - probably more closely drawn than any of the others I've read in Isaka's books, and by moving away from ensemble killer casts to focus on an individual, this felt like a different enough take on the assassin to keep me engaged throughout.
Like all of Isaka's books, I found this a fast, (mostly) fun read and I look forward to seeing what comes next.

The Mantis is a thriller about an assassin who just wants to retire, but knows his family would be under threat if he did. Kabuto works an office job, tries to keep on the good side of his wife, and worries about his son going to college. He also goes to the doctor's office, but it isn't any old doctor's office: he is being given jobs for assassinations. Despite his skill in this world, Kabuto wants to retire, to pay his way out and stick to family life, but the doctor doesn't want to see him go.

Having enjoyed Bullet Train and the combination of fast-paced thriller and dark assassin comedy, I was hoping for similar from The Mantis, and it didn't disappoint. The narrative has a great balance of Kabuto in action as an assassin and Kabuto dealing with things like wanting to have a friend and trying to make his wife happy whilst his son sees him as a pushover. There's some fun twists and turns (though nothing hugely surprising) and cameos/references to the events of Bullet Train, and generally this book is the same kind of good time you get from dark action films like the John Wick films (also with the assassin retirement theme). The pages flew by and as someone who usually prefers watching thrillers to reading them, Kotaro Isaka's books really give me that experience.