Rain Storm

Barry Eisler has given us a new hero - Japanese-American John Rain, the cynical, romantic, conscientious assassin - one of the most clever and vibrant protagonists we've seen in years. In this new novel, Rain has fled to Brazil to escape the killing business and the enemies encircling him. But his knack for making death seem to have been from "natural causes" and his ability to operate unnoticed in Asia continue to create unwelcome demand for his services. His old employer, the CIA, persuades him to take on a high-risk assignment: a ruthless arms dealer operating in Southeast Asia." The upside? Financial, of course, along with the continued chimera of moral redemption. But first, Rain will have to survive the downside: a second assassin homing in on the target; the target's consort, an alluring woman with an agenda of her own; and the possibility that the entire mission is nothing but an elaborate setup. From the gorgeous beaches of Rio to the glitzy casinos of Macau to the gritty back streets of Hong Kong and Kowloon, Rain becomes a reluctant player in an international game far deadlier and more insidious than any he has encountered before.

The estimation of the volume of runoff to be expected from a given volume of rainfall is a fundamental problem in flood forecasting. Such estimates are necessary before the unit hydrograph or other techniques can be used to predict the streamflow hydrograph. The authors describe the technique now used at the River Forecast Centers of the U.S. Weather Bureau for evaluating the effect of season, antecedent conditions, duration of rainfall and rainfall amount in determining the portion of the rainfall contributing to storm runoff. Special problems encountered in flood forecasting are emphasized. The technique, developed and tested over several years, yields a high degree of accuracy in estimated runoff. Although prepared by empirical procedures, the close agreement between relations for basins of similar hydrologic characteristics suggests that rational parameter have been adopted. The similarity between relations also simplifies the work required for their preparation.