The Imaginary Realms of

Gilbert M. Stack

72 Sole Survivor by Warren Murphy

Mr. Gordons is back in the 72nd Destroyer novel. Mr. Gordons is the survival machine who first appeared in Funny Money (book 18). In his last appearance, Remo thought he’d gotten rid of the android for good when it was launched into outer space, but at the beginning of this novel, Mr. Gordon makes contact with a Russian shuttle in orbit and assimilates it, killing the crew and bringing it back to earth.

It takes a long time for Remo and Chiun to discover that Mr. Gordons is the root of their problems. For most of the book, it appears to them that the difficulty is the missing shuttle and Russia’s unhappiness about it landing in the U.S. The Russians are most concerned because they had put a doomsday device that could sterilize all of America onto the shuttle and they don’t want it falling into America’s hands. To this end they send their top spy Anna Chutesov to locate and retrieve it. Anna is one of the only people with knowledge of CURE and has always been extremely competent. She and Remo also have a history that is obviously going to be complicated by Remo’s engagement to Sinanju villager, Mei Li.

This is a fun one. Mr. Gordons is a serious opponent—difficult to locate and nearly impossible to destroy. But then, that’s part of the fun. We know Remo and Chiun will triumph by the end of the novel. The question is how will Mr. Gordons escape to trouble them another day.

71 Return Engagement by Warren Murphy

This was quite simply a great Destroyer novel. After finally getting Remo to embrace the little village of Sinanju as his home and get engaged to ensure that the line of the Masters of Sinanju will continue, Chiun is unhappy. He feels left out. Remo and his fiancé are forging a bond with each other and Chiun is jealous. He misses the times when it was just Remo and him in America. So, he returns to America in a bid to force Remo to follow him. (And if you’ve read almost any other books in the series, you will realize that this isn’t sad—it’s hilarious.)

Harold Smith, head of CURE, is not immediately pleased with Chiun’s return to duty. Despite saving the nation in every book of the series, Remo and Chiun cause him a tremendous amount of personal stress and he was enjoying not having his ulcers aggravated by their continuing antics. But, as usual, he has a problem, and he sets Chiun on it—keeping an inventor from being assassinated. But Smith has a second problem which the reader knows is related to Chiun’s mission. Someone is going around the country murdering everyone named Harold Smith.

So, when Remo follows Chiun to America, he walks into two separate problems. The bad guy behind both problems is a Nazi who was crippled by Harold Smith at the end of World War II. He wants to get the use of his legs back (for which he needs the help of the inventor) and he wants vengeance on Harold Smith (which explains his killing all the other Smiths as he looks for him.) Oh, and did I mention he is literally a Nazi who is trying to start a new Nazi movement in the U.S? This sets up an absolutely hilarious scene in which Remo and Chiun try to infiltrate a neo-Nazi compound by pretending to be recruits. Just as a reminder, Chiun is a very old Korean and whatever Remo is (he’s an orphan, so he doesn’t know), it’s not Aryan.

This one is fun from the first page to the last.

1 Created, the Destroyer by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir

This novel is essential reading for anyone who likes the Destroyer series, but be forewarned that it also represents a time before the authors understood what they are writing about. Remo Williams is a NJ cop who is framed for murder and “killed” in the electric chair so that his identity can be wiped away and he can be trained to become a government assassin for a secret unconstitutional agency called CURE. Their job is to protect America and its constitution by eliminating threats that are two big to handle through the existing legal mechanisms. In this first book, that’s organized crime.

The recruiting and training of Remo is pretty well done. Chiun, Master of the Glorious House of Sinanju, is introduced, although neither Murphy or Sapir realized what they had created in the Master of Sinanju yet, so he has a very small role. The mystery is also fairly good. The New York City crime syndicates are run and protected by a man named Maxwell and Remo has to infiltrate, identify Maxwell, and kill him, before a congressional committee investigating organized crime reaches NYC.

One of the things that Murphy and Sapir do very well is bring the chief villain to life. At times, we are learning so much about his past that he takes over the novel, all of which adds to the credibility of the story.

What you don’t get in this novel is the trademark banter between Remo and Chiun and the superhuman abilities that Sinanju imparts upon Remo, but it’s still a very important start to a very fun series.

The Day Remo Died by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir

A couple of decades after the start of the series, Murphy and Sapir wrote a companion book called The Assassins Handbook which included this novella—a brilliant rewrite of the first book of the series from the perspective of Chiun, the Master of Sinanju. Forty or so books in, the authors had a much clearer idea of what it meant to be a Master of Sinanju and how one became one, and they took advantage of that knowledge to retcon the origin of the series. It’s an extremely clever reworking that all fans of the series will want to read—but it’s better if you’ve read the original book, Created, the Destroyer, first.

2 Death Check by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir

The second volume of the Destroyer series occurs eight years after the first. Remo’s training has greatly advanced, but the authors still don’t have the full understanding of what Sinanju is and the book still does not have Chiun enjoying a major role in the story. So in many ways, this book still does not feel like a Destroyer novel.

Yet, it does fit the genre of action novels pretty well. Remo has been brought to a training peak in readiness for a job and held there so long that by the time the job finally appears, his skills are starting to deteriorate. He has to infiltrate a brain trust which is developing a plan to conquer the world. Technically it is doing this for the U.S. government, but there’s evidence that all is not well in the trust and Remo’s work is cut out for him.

There’s a lot of fun in this novel as Remo verbally spars with pompous academics and physically spars with a biker gang and others. This book may not be the Destroyer “proper” yet, but it’s still a fun read.

3 Chinese Puzzle by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir

In the third Destroyer novel Murphy and Sapir finally began to figure out the magic that would make the series work. Chiun travels with Remo through the whole book and their back-and-forth banter brings some wonderful levity to the novel. Plus we learn important things about Remo and Chiun. Remo is a patriot (a change from Chiun’s initial assessment of him) and while Remo is becoming brilliant in the practice of Sinanju (sun source of all martial arts) he is actually not very intelligent. Oh, and Remo really enjoys teasing his boss, Harold Smith.

For his part, Chiun, gets his first serious development. He loves American soap operas (and the occasional updates on what is happening in his favorite television show are always hilarious). We also learn that Chiun really hates everyone with the possible exception of Remo. (This comes off at racism at first, until it becomes clear that it’s more akin to universal misanthropy.) Chiun can also be as temperamental as a child, which always causes additional problems for Remo—because this child can kill with a single finger and has no compunction against doing so.

The authors also recognize (perhaps after their experience with Death Check) that there is a lot of room for satire in this series. Sometimes this comes off as stereotyping, but it’s really satire. And while the satire is rarely sophisticated, it is almost always fun.

4 Mafia Fix by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir

Murphy and Sapir continue to catch their stride in this fourth book in the series, bringing it closer to the feel of the series as a whole. Remo and Chiun banter (or is that bicker?) humorously, and Remo’s fighting skills are building into the superhuman Sinanju abilities that help to make these books so distinctive. Yet the best thing about this book is the first of many times that the bad guys make the mistake of interrupting Chiun’s beloved soap operas. Chiun, the Master of Sinanju, is in his eighties and believes the soap opera to be the greatest expression of American art. Nothing can be permitted to interrupt them. Therefore, it is always with humor that the reader watches some poor fool intending to do Chiun harm make the mistake of coming between him and his beloved programs.

The plot is rather straightforward with very little genuine mystery. The mafia has managed to import four tanker truck loads of pure heroine into the country—a six-year supply at current U.S. usage rates—and Remo and Chiun must find the drugs before they are dispersed across the country. Not being much of a detective, Remo takes a very direct approach designed to make the criminals come to him. There’s no heavy thought in this book, but it’s still a lot of fun.

5 Dr. Quake by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir

Remo and Chiun are back to stop blackmailers—but not your traditional type of extortionists. These criminals don’t have secrets to expose, they have invented a device that can cause (or suppress) earthquakes and they are offering to protect (or destroy) areas along the San Andreas fault for a fee. Naturally, other criminal elements are also interested in this process, so Remo and Chiun have their hands full.

Murphy and Sapir are still working to perfect their Destroyer formula. In this book they add a very significant science fiction element, something that will feature in many future books. Remo continues to be rather stupid as a detective, but his plan is designed to draw the bad guys to him so it doesn’t cause him too much trouble. Once again, it’s Chiun who is the stealth star of the novel, bringing his delightfully bizarre way of looking at everything. I once read that the authors had originally planned to kill Chiun off in this book. If true, it’s fortunate that they changed their minds. Chiun is the heart of this series.

7 Union Bust by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir

The overall plot in this novel—someone trying to create a super union that can dictate wages and politics to the U.S. —was slightly more elevated that most Destroyer novels. Since the vast majority of the union workers are not criminals, and what they want to do would seem to be supported by the constitution, there were some ethical questions not generally dealt with in the series about a pair of assassins. But the heart of this novel centers around Chiun and his first pupil, a man who abandoned the traditions of Sinanju and went to work for himself. The super union is his plan, and this novel is really an opportunity to both create a villain whose skills are better than Remo’s and to begin to develop the House of Sinanju in a much more significant way than had been previously done. Anyone who has enjoyed this series will want to read this book to witness the first appearance of Nuihc.

8 Summit Chase by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir

While on assignment, pretending to be a normal assassin hired by the bad guys, an unlucky blow gives Remo amnesia and sets him on a collision course with Chiun. While it is possible that amnesia has been overused in the action and spy thriller subgenres, there is no denying that it adds a lot of spice to this adventure. Watching Remo try to figure out who he is and watching him interact with Chiun—all while wondering if the two will come to blows—added some much-appreciated tension to a series in which Remo’s extraordinary skills rarely leave any doubt as to whether or not he can complete his mission. It made for a very enjoyable read.

10 Terror Squad by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir

In the tenth Destroyer novel, Murphy and Sapir satirize the far-left revolutionary groups of the early 1970s, humorously pointing out the basic lack of humanity in these organizations even as they oppose a system that they claim lacks humanity. They also, far less humorously, show the similarities to other totalitarian regimes which are universally despised for their human rights abuses. All of that is par for the course with the Destroyer series—satirizing some aspect of the world is a part of just about every novel. The thing that makes Terror Squad stand apart is the return of Chiun’s first pupil, Nuich, and watching him manipulate events in an effort to be the only Master of Sinanju left standing. It’s a journey any fan of the series will want to take.

11 Kill or CURE by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir

In the opening chapter of this novel, CURE is exposed to the nation and teeters on the brink of Harold Smith having to take his suicide pill. Everything depends upon Remo and Chiun finding a way to convince the world that there really isn’t a secret government agency violating the constitution to keep American democracy safe. This time the satirical target is the American political system and it’s hilarious to watch Remo try and figure out how to manipulate the election in a major city to bring down the bad guy without confirming to the world that CURE truly does exist. This is the most unusual Destroyer adventure yet.

12 Slave Safari by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir

One of the things I like best about this series are the large number of legends of Sinanju that the authors relate. These are not just stories of past masters, but prophecies and other legends that derived out of the thousands of years of the masters interacting with the great powers of the world. Slave Safari offers one of these legends and part of the fun is in trying to figure out who the various pieces of the legend refer to in the story.

Overtop of this legend is a storyline having to do with a corrupt African government and an American trying to avenge all of those who were kidnapped into slavery by torturing the modern-day descendants of families who built their fortune on the slave trade. Throw into the mix a conflict between two differing tribal groups in the fictional African country and major money-driven power-politics in the U.S. and you have all the makings of a classic early Destroyer adventure.

13 Acid Rock by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir

This time Remo and Chiun go head-to-head with another House of Assassins as they struggle to keep a witness from falling victim to an open contract on her head. The witness is the daughter of a multi-millionaire business man who has decided to turn state’s evidence on her father because he tried to keep her from chasing down an acid rock star (named Maggot) whom she wants to have sex with. For most of the novel her sex, drugs, and rock and roll mindset makes her two dimensional, although there is just a touch of added personality given to her by the end of the book.

Most of the fun in the novel comes from seeing what another House of Assassins—this one with a six-hundred-year-old-history—looks like. And Remo, for possibly the first time in the series, really seems to understand what it means to be a member of a thousands-of-years-old house of assassins. This is a good addition to the early series.

14 Judgment Day by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir

The fourteenth Destroyer novel should have been called Hostile Takeover and this one is all Harold Smith’s show. Smith has been a fairly two-dimensional supporting cast member for the first thirteen books. He’s the elderly, budget conscious, patriotic head of CURE who apparently has no imagination and no personal ambition other than to do his job to the best of his ability. He carries a poison pill with him at all times, prepared to commit suicide to protect the secret of CURE. But in this volume, the bad guys have figured out the kind of information CURE tracks and they kidnap Smith and torture out of him the info they need to step in and take over. Unfortunately for them, they forget to actually kill Smith and that oversight leads to one of the best Destroyer novels, because smith is not about to leave CURE in enemy hands. Murphy and Sapir finally bring the head of CURE fully to life and leave only the question of why they waited so long to do so. Fans of the series will not want to miss this book.

15 Murder Ward by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir

Doctors as murderers—it’s a highly disturbing concept. When people go into a hospital for surgery, they need to believe that the doctors and nurses are wholly committed to helping them recover their health. But in this Destroyer novel, a couple of those key personnel are turning a profit by making certain their victims (I mean their patients) never recover consciousness. It’s a chilling premise at the root of another enjoyable tale by Murphy and Sapir.

Two other things add substantially to the enjoyment of this novel. The first is the continued focus on Remo’s remarkable skills that include mental training as well as physical adeptness. Remo isn’t just good at killing people, he recognizes how others go about their shared trade and knows their weaknesses. In addition, the ongoing interactions between Chiun and Remo are especially well displayed in this novel—especially Chiun’s usually concealed caring for his pupil. It also doesn’t hurt that the resolution of this novel depends upon the superhuman mastery of the body that masters of Sinanju attain—and so reinforces just how different Remo and Chiun are from other humans.

16 Oil Slick by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir

The thing that stood out most strongly to me in this novel was that I liked the nominal villain. He’s a colonel who has managed a successful coup in his fictional country, driving out a hereditary monarch, and is now trying to make life better for his people. Unfortunately, the oil companies, the industrialized nations, and even his own subordinates and people appear determined to frustrate him at every point. So nothing is changing despite his honest efforts to provide good government. As if that isn’t bad enough, he has also unintentionally run afoul of Sinanju. It seems that there is an ancient legend that Sinanju would protect the latest descendent of the ousted monarchy, and Chiun, is determined to uphold Sinanju’s end of the bargain. But even that is not the real problem, because Chiun’s original student, Nuihc, also knows the legend and is determined to use it to destroy Remo and Chiun.

This novel has all the usual satirical fun of the Destroyer series, plus plenty of action, and a very interesting conflict over who will be reigning master of Sinanju. I liked it a lot.

17 Last War Dance by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir

Sometimes a Destroyer novel works because of the introduction of a fascinating problem. That’s the case in this book. Back in the early 1960s, the U.S. developed a doomsday nuclear weapon to frighten the Soviets out of launching a first strike. As long as the weapon’s location is secret, it deters the Soviets. If its location is ever revealed, however, there is the possibility that the Soviets could turn the weapon back on America destroying much of North America. A decade has passed and the weapon, hidden beneath a memorial marking a massacre of native Americans by the U.S. army, is in danger of being revealed due to protestors planning to destroy the memorial.

That’s the problem confronting CURE—how to deactivate the weapon without the Soviets ever figuring out that it is really there. To complicate matters, Remo and Chiun also have to deal with the protestors (a ridiculous parody that really didn’t work that well). Weaknesses aside, the eventual resolution of the problem was sheer genius.

18 Funny Money by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir

Funny Money introduces one of the Destroyer’s best recurring villains—the survival-oriented machine called Mr. Gordons, and with it places the series’ feet another step further into the realm of science fiction. The problem initially confronting Remo, Chiun, and Smith is a perfectly counterfeited $50 bill being produced in vast quantities and threatening the entire U.S. economy, but it’s the brain behind the counterfeiting that is the real danger—one that even puts fear into the heart of the Master of Sinanju. This is a good story in its own right, but particularly important as the first appearance of Mr. Gordons.

19 Holy Terror by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir

This is the weakest of the Destroyer novels in the series so far. A religious cult, based in India, is spreading its influence across the United States essentially by using drugs to addict people and calling it some form of enlightenment. The cult has its fingers all over the U.S. in corporations, the federal government and many local governments and Remo has to figure out a way to stop it. That, of course, is the big weakness in the story. Remo’s solution does not appear to me to have resolved the country’s vulnerabilities, although it does provide a setback to the cult.

20 Assassin’s Playoff by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir

Nuihc is back with another plan to kill Remo and become Master of Sinanju. As with all of his plans, it depends completely on the Sinanju tradition that prevents the Master (i.e. Chiun) from killing a member of the village—meaning that Chiun cannot simply kill Nuihc and be done with him. (One does wonder if perhaps he shouldn’t punish him for his continued rudeness in the rather extreme ways that all masters of Sinanju tend to act.)

Nuihc is also clearly becoming afraid of Remo as well, because this time his plan involves training three westerners to attack Remo in a way that allows them to injure him even as Remo kills them. So Remo is coming to the big show down in very bad shape.

I liked the concept behind this novel, but I think it could have been enacted better. The back-and-forth insults and charges of cowardice between Nuihc and Chiun became rather tiresome as did the insults of the people of Sinanju toward Chiun when they thought that Nuihc would win. The novel was still enjoyable, but won’t rank as one of the great Remo vs. Nuihc showdowns.

21 Deadly Seeds by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir

The secret organization CURE has been at work trying to save the American government from crime and corruption for twenty books now and in this novel we learn that their greatest feat was bringing down Richard Nixon in the Watergate scandal. Apparently, Nixon’s activities were not unusual for sitting presidents, but thanks to CURE, his crimes were exposed and hopefully no future president will do it again.

But that is what you might call the routine work that CURE carries out. Remo and Chiun are only brought in for emergencies and this time the crisis involves a threat to the world’s food supply. Mentally, Remo has never been the sharpest knife in the drawer, and this time that causes serious problems. Remo mistakenly believes that the bad guy is the good guy and starts helping him out of his desire to “do some good”. As if that isn’t bad enough, other bad guys hire a bunch of ninjas to go after Remo and Chiun. Many times Chiun has bragged that Sinanju is the “sun source” of all the martial arts and that none of the others can stand against it. In this book, he’s going to get the chance to prove it.

22 Brain Drain by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir

This novel opens with a horrific multiple murder in which terrible things have been done to the victims’ bodies. The crime was carried out by recurring Destroyer foe Mr. Gordons on his perpetual quest to become more creative and destroy Remo and Chiun as the major threats to his long-term survival. Mr. Gordons is a great opponent. He doesn’t think the way we do and his mechanical nature makes him a particularly difficult foe for Remo and Chiun. Perversely, he also (in my opinion) proves to be quite creative in the ways in which he goes after Remo and Chiun—even if no one in the novel admits it. (And humorously, it’s uncreative Harold Smith who finds himself most in sync with uncreative Mr. Gordons.)

This isn’t one of the better Destroyer novels. It struck me as being slower moving than most books in the series so far, but it’s fun to see Mr. Gordons and it was an utter delight to watch Chiun get starstruck when he gets to meet his favorite soap opera actor, Rad Rex. And even if this wasn’t my second time through the series, it would be difficult to imagine that the threat of Mr. Gordons is actually ended at the end of the book.

23 Child’s Play by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir

One of the problems with creating two preternaturally capable assassins is that it is difficult to find challenges for them. With that in mind, Murphy and Sapir have added an interesting concept to the idea of Sinanju. Chiun and Remo cannot harm children. Now, this is a good thing from the reader’s perspective. We do not want our heroes assassinating children and we are thrilled when Chiun takes vengeance on a child killer early in the novel. But when the children are trying to kill Remo and Chiun, it adds an interesting and much appreciated complication to our heroes lives.

And that’s basically the plot of this novel plus a little satire of educational theories during the 1970s. The bad guys are using kids as their weapons and Remo and Chiun need to figure out how to survive this unusual weapon.

24 King’s Curse by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir

This novel is based on a fascinating premise—when the Spanish conquered the Aztec Empire a small native kingdom survived by abandoning their territory and over the next several centuries blending into various European (and other) countries while secretly keeping their culture and their devotion to their stone god of the secret name. Their god has been put in a museum (with no one knowing of its “importance”). When the “god” is defaced by a graffiti artist, they go crazy and bring back their old heart-stealing rituals to avenge the dishonor. CURE, by a coincidence, almost comes to light in the resulting chaos.

I admit that I’m a little tired of CURE almost getting exposed at this point. We’re only 24 books into the series and it’s been the threat of a handful of the plots already. But this is a fun book which lets Remo and Chiun’s talents shine. The authors also deserve kudos for coming up with one of their most unique threats for the assassins from Sinanju.

28 Ship of Death by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir

This was another weak Destroyer novel with only two truly interesting elements. First, Remo and Chiun decide to cease working for CURE and the U.S. and find a new client. In this case, they choose Iran which is still ruled by the Shah. I thought the decision to do this was fascinating, but the groundwork was poorly laid. Remo is simply feeling disillusioned and Chiun really doesn’t put much effort into finding himself the best deal post-America. He simply settles on Iran because Persia had paid well hundreds of years earlier.

The better element was the bad guy who got a tremendous amount of camera footage of Remo and was trying to analyze his abilities. This storyline wouldn’t work later in the series when Murphy and Sapir decided that Chiun and Remo couldn’t be filmed, but it was interesting to watch the attempt to analyze their weaknesses in order to kill them.

Overall, this was another very weak book whose plot made little sense (the United Nations decides to leave New York and set up headquarters in a half mile long cruise ship where someone is killing off delegates). I’m hoping the next book will be better.

29 The Final Death by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir

The Final Death continues a string of very weak Destroyer novels. The best element was a conversation between exiting President Gerald Ford and newly sworn in President Jimmy Carter in which Ford passes to his successor knowledge of the existence of CURE. Carter, of course, is horrified to find out that there is an off-the-books government agency acting unconstitutionally to protect the country. He is indignantly ready to close CURE down, until Ford’s warning sinks in and he realizes that maybe, just maybe, he will need an agency no one knows about to help him do his job.

The actual plot is weak—a Chinese cult that has been around for at least a thousand years is trying to kill off Americans by poisoning beef. While the plot was bad, the element of the ages old cult let us take a look at an earlier stage of Sinanju before they became the sun-source of the martial arts. Watching Master Pak at work shows where many of Chiun’s hard-learned lessons came from. But overall, this was not enough to salvage the story.

31 The Head Men by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir

Jimmy Carter is in the White House, has discovered CURE, knows what they can do, and is so confident in their abilities that he refuses to worry about a very credible assassination threat. Indeed, he’s so confident in Remo and Chiun’s skills that he decides to stops payments that have been made by several presidents now as a prevent measure to stay the unknown assassin’s hand. The problem is that Remo cannot defend the president from a threat that he doesn’t know about.

This is a much better story than the series has been producing of late. The problem is credible and the solution—hinted at by Sinanju legend—was well thought out. There’s a lot of muddling around in the middle that really wasn’t that fun, but when Remo finally figures out what’s going on things start moving well again.

Perhaps the best element of the story was the way in which Murphy and Sapir took a centuries-old Sinanju teaching fable and showed how it directly applied to modern day problems. The Masters of Sinanju are not the best solely because of their extraordinary physical abilities. They have been in the assassination trade for thousands of years and have learned just about everything there is to know about killing people. It was very clever of the authors to show how relevant that ancient knowledge can be today.

32 Killer Chromosomes by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir

After several weak books, The Destroyer finds its magic again with a straight-up science fiction adventure story. Scientist Sheila Feinberg recklessly combines several experimental DNA solutions in an attempt to prove how safe they are and turns herself into a sort of weretiger driven with a need to hunt and kill humans. Remo is sent out to find the beast and makes a critical mistake which leads to Feinberg almost killing him. He’s still good enough that he drives Feinberg off, but the shock to his system knocks him out of his Sinanju training (something Chiun describes as an amnesia of the body rather than the mind) and he begins sinking back into his ordinary human state—smoking cigarettes, eating meat, and plunging into a terrible depression.

Feinberg, meanwhile, is so impressed by Remo’s physical skills that she becomes obsessed with capturing him as a stud for a future race of tiger creatures. It’s not completely clear why she feels the need to do this, because she also begins forcing regular humans to imbibe her tiger formula turning them into werebeasts like her—creatures that begin hunting Remo.

Smith also makes several mistakes here and President Carter actually tries (and fails) to shut CURE down because Remo isn’t reporting in anymore. In setting a trap for the tiger people, Smith unknowingly puts everything on the line as CURE faces off against its most serious threat yet.

34 Chained Reaction by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir

Ruby Gonzalez appears again but she’s not enough to rescue this very weak Destroyer novel. A descendant of southern slave holders has decided to re-enslave African Americans—at least until he runs into Remo, Chiun, and Ruby. The only really good thing about this novel is Smith’s interaction with Ruby in which he correctly deduces that she has figured out what CURE is. He wants Remo and Chiun to kill her and they refuse. Chiun, in fact, has decided that Ruby would make an excellent mother for Remo’s children (Remo has not been consulted) and thus the next generation of the House of Sinanju. Unfortunately, the small bits of fun this circumstance brings about were not enough to save the novel.

35 Last Call by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir

Murphy and Sapir definitely did not like the CIA in the 1970s. Several of their books have plot elements that stress the incompetence of the organization and its failure to prioritize national security. In Last Call, a Carter appointee gets rid of a program he knows nothing about in order to save money—and in so doing, accidentally triggers a doomsday scenario. The program was designed to assassinate key Soviet figures if they launched a nuclear strike on the U.S. but it is set in motion not by a nuclear strike but by a failure to file a report which can’t be filed when the program is shut down.

This is a fun novel and let’s Harold Smith get some time in the limelight. Smith set up this program during the Eisenhower Administration when he was still in the CIA. Now Smith has to use Remo and Chiun to try and stop the leader of the Soviet Union from being assassinated.

Ruby Gonzalez reappears for the third time in this novel and while she certainly continues to be a sharp and capable operative, I did not think that the banter between her and Remo and Chiun was as effective this time around.

36 Power Play by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir

Remo and Chiun get the task of protecting Wesley Pruiss, publisher of the aptly named pornographic magazine, Gross. Pruiss has been crippled by a knife wielding assassin shortly after announcing that he was investing his fortune in figuring out how to power a town completely by solar energy. (He actually “bought” the town so that he could make extremely raunchy movies without trouble from the authorities.) For some reason, Harold Smith, the Director of CURE believes that Pruiss will come through on the solar energy and sends Remo and Chiun to keep him alive.

This is not the sort of mission Remo excels at. What usually happens is that Remo meets the bad guy early in the book, likes the bad guy, and totally doesn’t understand that the bad guy is moving against him until very late in the novel. Chiun, for his part, usually figures everything out very quickly and just doesn’t tell Remo what’s really going on.

To make this book more interesting than most, Murphy and Sapir introduce a group of renegade descendants of Sinanju villagers. (Sinanju is the impoverished North Korean fishing town that Chiun calls home.) These descendants betrayed one of Chiun’s ancestors after he had taught them how to wield a knife effectively and he exiled them. Interestingly enough, the knife-wielding assassin in this book does not believe the myths of the Masters of Sinanju and is in for a big surprise when he runs into Remo.

Over all, this is a fun novel despite its weaknesses. The elements that make this series so enjoyable—the legends, the relationship between Remo and Chiun, Chiun’s peculiar way of viewing the world, and the action—are all here.

37 Bottom Line by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir

In Bottom Line, Remo and Chiun are once again given the task of protecting people rather than killing them. In this case it is a wealthy and influential American family whose youngest members seem to be going crazy before killing themselves. They, of course, don’t seem to think there is anything to fear. The plot was completely transparent to everyone (including the reader) except Remo. That being said, it was still a quick and enjoyable read.

38 Bay City Blast by Warren Murphy

This is one of the better Destroyer novels. In the destitute New Jersey town of Bay City, an eccentric and wealthy man arrives and begins taking over, eventually blackmailing the mayor into leaving and getting himself appointed to the position himself. He then begins to invite major organized crime figures to come to Bay City and set up shop. This attracts the attention of a group of vigilantes whose leader calls himself The Eraser, He’s come to town to rescue Bay City from the criminals. Finally, this results in Remo and Chiun being called in to protect the mayor who has caused all the trouble. Yes, you read that right. Remo is assigned to protect the bad guy from the vigilantes.

What follows is a delightful parody of the “shoot ‘em up” subgenre—especially of books like The Executioner, or even, The Destroyer. And it does this without Remo having to be his normal absolutely dense self. This book breaks the “bodyguard” rules that Murphy and Sapir have established in many earlier books and allows Remo and Chiun to do what they do best. There’s the usual banter to liven things up and one of the best endings of the series so far.

40 Dangerous Games by Warren Murphy

This is one of my favorite Destroyer novels. A terrorist group has threatened to kill all of the American athletes at the Moscow Olympic Games in 1980. (Yes, I know that the U.S. didn’t attend those games, but this book was obviously written before Jimmy Carter made that decision.) The Soviets will not let the U.S. send security teams to accompany their athletes, so Harold Smith, head of CURE, sends Remo and Chiun. To get there, Remo has to qualify for the U.S. Olympic Team and the only challenge for him here is to not perform too well—because as the heir to the mysteries of Sinanju, Remo could make the Olympic athletes in every sport look like toddlers coming out onto the field.

So on one level it was just a lot of fun watching Remo try not to perform too well, but there are a couple of great subplots involving a jealous athlete and a young gymnast who intrigues Remo enough to help her excel at her art in a way she never before imagined. Then there is Chiun who wants Remo to win so he can get endorsement deals. And there is also the not insignificant problem of stopping a terrorist organization from killing all the Americans at the games. Suffice it to say, that this was one of the best of the series and I enjoyed every page of it.

41 Firing Line by Warren Murphy

With Firing Line, Murphy provides another strong volume in the Destroyer series. This time, Remo and Chiun have to go head-to-head with a villain who can make fire with his mind. He’s only a teenager, but he’s got a taste for burning buildings—and people—and Remo is on his list. Chiun is particularly concerned because of an ancient Sinanju legend involving the only time a Master of Sinanju failed in a mission—and a pair of curses that ordain that a descendent of Sinanju and of the original fire maker will refight the battle in the future. It's always nice for Remo to have to solve different problems, and the fact that the bad guy is technically a child adds a lot of complexity as the traditions of Sinanju abhor killing children. But how can Remo stop this firebug without killing him?

This novel is also worth reading as it is the last appearance of Ruby Gonzalez. Ruby started strong in this series and then was poorly written for most of the rest of her appearances. Fortunately, she ends on a strong note. She’s decided to leave CURE and Smith has decided that means she must die. Remo, her friend, naturally doesn’t want to take that assignment. Ruby’s fate is worth reading the novel for.

42 Timber Line by Warren Murphy

An old acquaintance of Harold Smith’s discovered a tree that produces raw kerosene like a maple tree produces syrup. That was twenty years ago and the trees have been successfully transplanted from the Amazon to the U.S. and are about ready to prove their worth. Naturally, lots of people find the idea that the U.S. could become self-sufficient in oil production troubling and want to burn the grove to the ground. Remo and Chiun have to stop them from doing it.

This is a fun adventure. Nothing about it is too deep and you have to keep reminding yourself that this was written forty years ago when the oil and gas situation was very different than it is today. There are the usual cast of over the top personalities as Remo blunders around trying to find the villain, eliminating suspects usually because they die. Chiun, of course, figures things out much faster, but doesn’t deign to give Remo the information he needs. How Sinanju will survive when Remo becomes reigning master remains to be seen.

43 Midnight Man by Warren Murphy

Murphy slides back into science fiction for this tale about Elmo Wimpler, a man who invents an invisibility paint. Notice that Murphy wastes no time with subtly here. Wimpler, as the name suggests, is a total wimp. He’s the kind of guy that used to get sand kicked on him at the beach in those old Charles Atlas advertisements. He’s wimpy enough that the reader’s sympathies are strongly with him, until he’s pushed over the edge and becomes a homicidal murderer at which point we can’t wait for Chiun and Remo to catch up with him and put him out of his misery.

Interwoven around Wimpler’s tale is the story of a monarch based on the Shah of Iran in exile. He’s the target for the new homicidal maniac who is in quest of a new profession as an assassin. He’s portrayed highly sympathetically, but one suspects all is not well at his home in exile.

As Remo and Chiun try to protect the dying monarch while catching Wimpler, new assassins, apparently connected to the monarch’s household start coming after them. These combats between the Masters of Sinanju and these highly trained soldiers are the highlight of the story, for they show once again how superior Remo and Chiun are. The problem of dealing with an invisible opponent is also well dealt with. Overall, this is a good one.

44 Balance of Power by Warren Murphy (Ghost Co-Writer Molly Cochran)

The best thing about this weak Destroyer novel is the foreword by Warren Murphy in which he gives some insights into his partnership with Richard Sapir in writing the books and sort of explains why Sapir has disappeared from the covers. Sapir then writes his own forward which I hope was meant to be humorous but makes him look insane.

The story is not actually much of a Destroyer novel. It’s really about an aging CIA man named Barney Daniels who has lost himself in a bottle and is both outing the CIA and killing people. Much of the novel is dedicated to finding out how Barney got this way and seeing if he can pull himself back together. I suppose it was an okay story, but it wasn’t what I look for in a Destroyer novel.

45 Spoils of War by Warren Murphy (Ghost Writer: Molly Cochran)

This was another weak book in the series. A charismatic minister is taking over army bases and turning the soldiers into his own army and no one can figure out what’s happening to the soldiers. No, that doesn’t make sense, and neither did this novel. Remo and Chiun come in to fix things, get attacked a few times, and finally figure out what’s going on. There’s really nothing to write home about here.

The only truly good thing about the novel is that Remo passes another phase of his Sinanju training, having a dream about dying. I didn’t think this boosted the story very much, but in the larger scheme of things as Remo advances toward being a master, it’s worth noting. I also wonder if Chiun’s former pupil, Nuich, passed this stage.

46 Next of Kin by Warren Murphy

The Destroyer finds its footing again in this novel about an unsuspected apprentice to Sinanju traitor, Nuihc. The apprentice, known as the Dutchman, combines Sinanju training with psychic abilities that make him a formidable opponent for Chiun and Remo. Add to that that he has sworn to the now deceased Nuihc that he will kill the remaining masters of Sinanju and you have the basis for a good story.

Murphy takes the time to develop the backdrop and build tension by getting into the head of the Dutchman who clearly doesn’t truly understand how deadly Remo and Chiun are. At times, unfortunately, it also felt as if the author didn’t remember how deadly the Masters of Sinaju are, making me wonder if there may have been a ghost writer involved in the novel. Remo is troubled by the need to hold his breath long before he should have been and there is an encounter with some strangely acting serpents that also didn’t feel quite “real” to me as a longtime admirer of the series. I’d also say that after a great buildup to the Dutchman’s powers, he didn’t use the psychic abilities nearly as effectively as I would have expected. Yet none of this truly detracted from the story and Chiun’s surprising sympathy for the Dutchman really humanized the tale. I would have expected Chiun to want to stamp out the illicit branch of Sinanju and yet he seems to not want to be driven to that extreme. Perhaps he is remembering his own failure to properly mentor Nuihc.

47 Dying Space by Warren Murphy

The survival machine, Mr. Gordons, returns for what is his most unusual adventure yet. Mr. Gordons is an assimilator machine who believes that its survival is threatened by the existence of Remo and Chiun. To defeat them, he is constantly searching for a way to become “creative”. After his last encounter with Remo, he was dismantled and destroyed, but enough of his parts survived that when (through a strange confluence of events) they came into contact with an extremely high-tech computer, he was able to put himself back together again—but with memory problems that cause him to seek out the creator of the high-tech computer for assistance. Strangely, the android who has been so horrific in past adventures, forms a friendship with this scientist, even as he continues his crusade against Remo.

Things get rather complicated after that and I don’t want to give away any surprises, so I’ll just say that this book will make you wonder if the killer robot could actually become a hero. It’s a bit silly at times, but thoroughly enjoyable.

48 Profit Motive by Warren Murphy

This is the longest Destroyer novel in the series thus far and one of the worst. Someone has invented a bacteria that eats oil. It sounds great when you’re talking about oil spills, but the villain is planning to seed it in the oil wells of the world to destroy them, then step into the void this creates with a monopoly on an incredibly expensive (and damaging to human health) synthetic fuel.

The plot holds potential, but Murphy utterly fails in enacting it. The story is just plain boring and it goes on and on and on (remember, longest Destroy novel in the series thus far). In fact there are only two slightly redeeming characteristics to this tale. First, Remo and Chiun get put at odds over an ancient Sinanju contract. This could have made things great, but unfortunately this plot twist falls as flat as the rest of the novel.

The second point of interest is that this is the first appearance of recurring Destroyer villain, Friend. Friend is an autonomous computer program written for the sole purpose of making a profit. In later books, Friend makes a great villain, but unfortunately not here.

Destroyer 49 Skin Deep by Warren Murphy

This is another of the weaker Destroyer novels as Remo, Chiun, and Smith go up against a Nazi who has mastered from pretty serious brainwashing techniques. Smith has a personal grudge (alongside his basic human disgust) against the Nazi for crimes the man committed against people Smith knew during World War II. As often happens, there’s a bit of Sinanju legends also woven into the story.

The most annoying part of the novel is that Remo has opportunities to act and end threats that he simply doesn’t take advantage of. I suspect that the justification is over confidence coming from his Sinanju skills, but it was very irritating to watch him let opportunities slip past.

Destroyer 52 Fool’s Gold by Warren Murphy

This is the best Destroyer novel in several books. Chiun and Remo look like the master ultra-human assassins they are and they have a mission which shows off their skills nicely. The main plot revolves around an ancient plaque inscribed with the writing of a lost South American kingdom of traders that is found in a cave in the U.S. and tells of a mountain of gold hidden somewhere. The world is instantly interested and Remo and Chiun get the job of guarding the U.S.’s expert in the language as she tries to decipher the texts. A rival house of assassins is trying to get their hands on the woman so their employer can find the treasure, so Remo and Chiun have their work cut out for them. And that’s where this book shines the brightest. As one would expect from the Master of Sinanju and his apprentice, Remo and Chiun are never really worried about their rivals—only about whether they can keep their charge alive.

There’s also a subplot revolving around the CURE computers getting dumped into the computer of a Hollywood screen writer. The subplot was ridiculous, but gave Harold Smith something to do while Remo and Chiun were on their mission, and gave Murphy a chance to satirize Hollywood again.

This one is just loads of fun.

Destroyer 53 Time Trial by Warren Murphy

It’s hard to come up with a truly fresh plot in a series with more than fifty books in it, but Murphy accomplished exactly that in Time Trial. Remo and Chiun get pulled back in time while investigating advanced weaponry near a Mayan ruin in the jungle. In fact, they get pulled back 5000 years where they become involved in the events that begin the Mayan calendar and find themselves the pivotal players in determining whether the young Mayan people will survive or be snuffed out by the Olmec. Now I won’t pretend there is any actual history in this story, but it is an enjoyable adventure with a lot of action and some interesting problems.

Destroyer 54 Last Drop by Warren Murphy

This one will pull you right in. The novel begins with a rather typical Destroyer problem. Someone has found a way to infuse pure heroine into coffee and coffee fanatics across the country are dying in droves from the resulting (and unexpected) drug overdose. CURE begins to investigate and discovers that something far more troubling to them personally is going on. Everyone that Remo has contact with ends up dead by an unknown assassin’s hand suggesting someone knows about CURE and also putting Smith in great danger.

As Remo continues to try and track down the source of the tainted coffee, Chiun races off to protect Smith who is already in trouble. And then things get really exciting. Remo is facing off against a master of the mechanical trap and while the reader knows he has to survive to star in the next 100+ books in the series, the threats seem genuine as he encounters them. Remo is also going through a sort of existential crisis (again) about his profession (i.e. killing people) and I thought that his resolution was the best one they have come up with yet for his periodic distaste for his profession.

Let me add that the ultimate villain should have been obvious but wasn’t. I’m embarrassed I didn’t catch on earlier. Murphy actually used the tropes of the series against me, and I loved it. This is four books in a row that the author has found his mojo again, giving me a lot of hope for the next novel.

Destroyer 55 Master’s Challenge by Warren Murphy

This is one of the storylines that stands out most clearly in my memory from my first reading of this series more than 20 years ago. It’s also one of the best all around Destroyer novels. In it, Remo discovers he has peers—men and women from rival houses whose superior skills make them capable of killing even the Masters of Sinanju. As if that is not enough, the reader is also introduced to the master who trained Chiun as Chiun initiates an ancient Sinanju tradition, The Master’s Challenge—a coming of age ceremony in which the coming master proves himself in battles to the death with the scions of these rival houses. As if that isn’t enough, the Dutchman returns, even more insane than when we last saw him, still determined to fulfill his vow to Chiun’s first student and kill the reigning master.

Murphy is at the top of his form in this one. The rival masters are all at least respectable and most are genuinely likeable, and Remo doesn’t want to fight them. But honor and tradition are part of the life’s blood of all of these ancient houses and Remo’s desires do not seem to matter. So this is a great problem with a lot of raw emotion as Remo faces off against the other masters and Chiun confronts the Dutchman, but that still isn’t everything that Murphy has to offer in this book. While Remo is MIA dealing with Sinanju’s business, Harold Smith has to run CURE all by himself and he has uncovered a doozy of a problem. Someone is planning to assassinate the president and they have found a way to bypass the Secret Service to get at him. Smith has never seemed to think too highly of Remo, but having to do everything himself gives him a new appreciation for the talents of his enforcement arm, and the reader a new appreciation for Smith’s own dedication to duty and his own impeccable sense of honor.

Murphy brilliantly balances all of these storylines as he steadily guides Remo to the most important fight of his life. And the consequences of this novel continue to reverberate in all the remaining books including the legacy series about Remo’s children. If you have never read a Destroyer novel, I would not start with this book. But if you’ve read even a handful, this novel is a must read.

Destroyer 56 Encounter Group by Warren Murphy

Murphy is back with another Destroyer novel that sadly slips away from the highs of recent books. It begins with a plodding spoof of groups searching for UFOs but suddenly heats up when Remo gets hurt by a flying saucer. As readers of the series know, it’s very hard to hurt Remo so the stakes were suddenly real. To make matters even more concerning, Chiun believes that the alien Remo encountered may well represent the beings that gave Sinanju the sun source a thousand or more years earlier. (In Sinanju legend this is represented by a ring of fire descending from the heavens, but they do not know what the ring of fire was.) In his eagerness to learn more from the alien, Chiun joins his team and helps carry out his order to save the world by getting rid of America’s nuclear arsenal leaving Remo—never the sharpest knife in the drawer—to figure out what is really going on and save the nation again. The book is fun, but it’s not great.

57 Date with Death By Warren Murphy

Someone is murdering Mexicans and dumping their bodies in a canyon in New Mexico and Smith sends Remo and Chiun in to find out what’s going on and put an end to it. This is a surprisingly straightforward adventure for the pair of assassins. There really isn’t any investigating needed. Most of the book involves them penetrating a fortress in New Mexico and killing everyone in their spectacular way. (It’s always fun to see proof of just how amazing Remo and Chiun’s physical abilities are.) A little extra interest is generated by one of the bad guys being an army officer Remo despised back in Vietnam. So nothing groundbreaking here, but still a lot of fun.

Destroyer 58 Total Recall by Warren Murphy

Remo and Chiun try to track down who is killing children who have gotten in trouble with the law. It’s more of a detective story than usual and frankly, despite a more believable premise than usual, it never really caught my interest. The banter was subpar and the stakes never really had us worried that Remo and Chiun couldn’t win out in the end.

Destroyer 59 The Arms of Kali by Warren Murphy

This could have been one of the great Destroyer novels. It introduces the goddess Kali and depicts her connection to the Glorious House of Sinanju. If you expect this to be a good connection (you know, ancient house of assassins and a goddess of death and murder) than you couldn’t be more wrong. For Kali once “seduced” (not literally) Master Lu and his loss of control to become her unwilling servant makes him the worst master of Sinanju to ever live. Lu escaped Kali in the end, but her curse lingers on the house and now it’s coming for Remo.

A new cult of Kali is murdering airline passengers and CURE has to track down the culprits. Unfortunately, when Remo gets close, he begins to fall under Kali’s influence and risks becoming the new Master Lu. Frankly, it should have been a great book, but Remo didn’t feel like Remo ever in this novel and the account of Kali and Remo and Chiun’s struggles with her bored me terribly. I wonder if perhaps a ghost writer actually penned the novel. It just didn’t feel like a Destroyer book. The only saving graces are 1) it introduces Kali whom, if memory serves, will return to trouble Remo and Chiun again; and 2) it introduces Master Lu.

Destroyer 60 The End of the Game by Warren Murphy

It doesn’t seem like it should, but this novel actually worked. The villain is a young genius game designer who is totally bored with life. The only enjoyment he gets is in manipulating people (or nations) into doing things out of character. He is ridiculously wealthy and he uses his money first to addict people to spending and then (with the threat of removing that money) to get them to do inappropriate (or even horrible) things. When he decides to end his boredom by getting the Soviets and the U.S. to launch their nuclear missiles at each other and start World War III, CURE becomes involved.

This is a very quick moving, very light-hearted, Destroyer adventure. The villain can never quite be taken seriously and the threats are never quite severe enough to make us genuinely worry about Remo, but the story works anyway.

Destroyer 61 Lords of the Earth by Warren Murphy

This novel starts out pretty wobbly but slowly gains its balance as it approaches the middle of the book. The villain is a rich lunatic who is horrified by all the ways in which insects are killed on this planet and has scientists working on the perfect housefly—one that can’t be killed by any poison and whose bite transforms people into unthinking monsters with heightened strength. (It reminded me a little of a potential zombie apocalypse, but people weren’t writing about the zombie apocalypse in 1985 so the novel never actually goes in that direction.) The villain’s plan is to unleash these flies on the world so that humans and other animals can be reduced in numbers and the insects rule as they were intended to. So yes, he’s pretty crazy, and he’s not really a particularly good villain. He’s just too far off the deep end.

There’s also a pretty bad parody of a UN office and of some environmental terrorists—not uncommon occurrences in the Destroyer series. The UN office is more interested in fine lifestyles for their diplomats than in their environmental mission of their agency and the terrorists are two adult children of wealthy Americans who spend a good portion of the book trying to get credit for terrorists acts they committed that Remo and Chiun foil. So once again, there’s nothing here to write home about.

However, there was one part of the story that rescued the book. Harold Smith, the cold and analytical head of CURE, accidentally makes a friend and while the reader knows that no good can come of this, it was nice to see a little emotion in Smith. The friend is emotionally damaged, but not in a nasty way, and he’s really, really, smart—smart enough to figure out a little bit of what Sinanju is all about and even Remo and Chiun gain a little respect for him. It’s just enough to save the novel.

Destroyer 62 The Seventh Stone by Warren Murphy

I’ve been rereading the entire Destroyer series for a couple of years now, but the blurb for this book made me highly reluctant to open this one. I guess the point of the blurb is that “sex sells” but it was highly misleading as sex really has almost nothing to do with the plot. In fact, this is a fairly classic Destroyer adventure with a little more cleverness than we’ve seen in the majority of the last twenty or thirty books.

Roughly 2000 years ago, a ruler hired Sinanju to kill his brother, and then tried to get out of paying them because he thought natural causes were the reason for his enemy’s death. Naturally, the Master of Sinanju could not accept this and rather painfully proved that he had in fact killed the ruler’s enemy. This made the ruler willing to pay the master, but not willing to publicly do so (as he had publicly denounced the master earlier.) So the Master of Sinanju set about changing the ruler’s mind, eventually driving him out of his kingdom and chasing him around the world until he lost track of him off the coast of North America. 2000 years later, the ruler’s descendants are looking for vengeance.

Now the idea of the family who keeps its grudge for millennia happens with a fair amount of frequency in this series, but it’s still a good plot device. The bulk of the book is taken up by their attempts to kill Remo and Chiun. It was entertaining and there was a very well-prepared surprise in the novel. Too bad the book has a blurb which really has nothing to do with the story.

Destroyer 63 The Sky Is Falling by Warren Murphy

Just when you think Murphy has figured out how to write Destroyer novels again, he gives you a book like The Sky Is Falling. Aside from being tediously long, it just doesn’t catch any of the magic that the regular books in the series do. The main plot is that a corporation has figured out a way to put a short-term hole in the ozone layer and the resulting unfiltered sunlight wrecks just about everything it hits. The Soviets naturally think that this is a weapon the U.S. is preparing to deploy against them while the U.S. is trying to figure out who is messing with the ozone and threatening the planet.

Perhaps the reason this book is so weak is because Remo and Chiun are separated for most of it. Remo is on the trail of the ozone holes—ludicrous because Remo is showing even fewer functioning brain cells than normal—and Chiun is looking for stolen Sinanju treasure. This last storyline should have made this a great book. It’s an idea that is used very well later in the series. But this time, it just falls flat. As for Remo, sometimes Murphy makes it look like he couldn’t find his own two hands.

The single best part of the novel comes after the Soviets manage to get film of Remo killing a bunch of people. They are trying to figure out how he does it and after all of their unarmed combat experts come up blank, they turn to a bunch of their Olympic coaches. After overcoming their horror at seeing people killed right and left, all the coaches become fascinated with Remo’s speed, grace, strength, and timing. It’s just a couple of pages, but it was nice to have Murphy find a new way to show us how capable Remo is.

Destroyer 64 The Last Alchemist by Warren Murphy

This novel starts out well. An extremely rich man goes to murderous lengths to uncover the secret of alchemy—turning lead into gold—something that requires him to steal a lot of uranium. This understandably attracts the attention of CURE and puts Remo and Chiun on the rich man’s trail. The rich man then sets an assassin on Remo and Chiun’s trail which offers Murphy the opportunity to really show how capable and flat out frightening his two heroes are.

The novel loses steam toward the end but has a very nice ending when Chiun finds out just who the villain of the story is. Overall, this is a credible Destroyer novel.

Destroyer 65 Lost Yesterday by Warren Murphy

Murphy has invented a new type of problem for Remo and Chiun—a mysterious poison that causes amnesia. It’s being used by a cult to protect its paying members from witnesses against them in court. And it’s obvious from moment one that Remo is going to encounter that poison and have his Sinanju training pitted against a chemical danger. The result was very interesting.

The wrap up to the novel is also peculiar as Chiun and Remo disagree about the proper way to confront the danger. To make matters worse, the president and Smith begin to interfere with Remo’s plans to end the danger as well for reasons they don’t share with Remo. This causes a lot of tension at the end of the story.

Frankly, I liked this plot a lot, but the story needed to be much shorter. It felt padded as if it was being stretched to make an artificial word count.

Destroyer 66 Sue Me by Warren Murphy

Lawyers are the big bad guys of the sixty-sixth Destroyer novel. These are the sorts of lawyers that are disparagingly referred to as “ambulance chasers”. In this case, however, the lawyers are not content to wait for accidents to happen, they create incidents in which dozen, hundreds, or even thousands of people are killed so that they can step in and represent them earning millions for themselves with each case. Remo and Chiun get the task of stopping them from doing this, but Smith won’t simply let them kill the lawyers. He wants evidence of their wrong doing so he can prosecute them to try and dissuade others from emulating their misdeeds.

This novel didn’t really work for me. I never believed in the threat these men’s fixer presented to Remo and Chiun and the effort to satirize the legal profession fell short. Sometimes these books feel like Murphy was going through the motions and this was one of them.

67 Look into My Eyes by Warren Murphy

Murphy has been building for several books toward Remo’s “transition” into a full master of Sinanju. Chiun has been complaining for several books that Remo is physically ready but needs rest to allow the transition to take place. And of course there is never any time for rest because each novel involves a nation-threatening crisis. This time, however, things break down, and Remo and Chiun essentially quit just as a Russian super hypnotist escapes from Russia and becomes a major problem for the U.S. and CURE.

This could have been a very mediocre book despite Chiun and Smith being “caught” by the hypnotist who forces them to switch sides. What makes it special is the core of the transition in which, over several chapters, Remo has a fantastic conversation with the Great Wang—the man who discovered the sun source and created Sinanju several thousand years ago. (Before Wang, Sinanju was just a house that produced a lot of competent assassins—they weren’t the supermen that created the martial arts that they become.) Wang is a phenomenal character who appears (despite being dead) to be more sane and balanced than either Chiun and Remo. He sees through their peculiarities and understands that they are very similar despite appearing to be polar opposites. His attempt to talk some sense into Remo is just wonderful, but I suspect it only works if you have read a lot of the preceding sixty-six novels.

This book also introduces Russian agent Anna Chutesov who is a recurring character. She and Remo have a somewhat romantic interest in each other, but that isn’t what makes her so good. She sees through problems exceedingly well and she’s a breath of fresh air for the series. Seeing Smith talked into not trying to force Chiun and Remo to eliminate her to preserve the secret of CURE was just great.

68 An Old Fashioned War by Warren Murphy

This is an interesting problem for Remo and Chiun. Some Native Americans release the God of War and he “inspires” them to start a successful rebellion against the United States. Very quickly, the new “Indian Uprising” is growing into a major threat for the country and President Reagan wants it stopped without bloodshed so Remo and Chiun are sent in. Everything is going well until Chiun suddenly deserts Remo to return to Sinanju and Remo is forced to face down the bad guy (Mr. Arieson) by himself. He finds that Arieson can’t be killed, although he does force him to retreat, turning into a wisp of smoke and disappearing.

Remo realizes that Chiun must have recognized Arieson in the histories of Sinanju so he returns to the fishing village which is Chiun’s home to read the old scrolls, but Chiun won’t let him read them until he agrees to marry a Korean girl initiating a mildly funny storyline about marriage. Meanwhile, Remo can’t find what he needs in the scrolls and Chiun begins to tell him that the secret to defeating Arieson lies in the stolen treasure of Sinanju. Something Remo disbelieves, but that the reader suspects is true.

Most of the novel involves Remo leaving to get rid of Arieson and then returning to Sinanju to seek answers again and again. It frankly gets a bit old until Arieson tries to start a war in Russia and Anna Chutesov from the last novel gets involved. Anna has brains and together she and Remo begin learning Arieson’s secrets.

There’s a lot to like in this novel—especially the solution to the whereabouts of Sinaju’s stolen treasure. It’s not the best of Destroyer books, but it is certainly enjoyable.

69 Blood Ties by Warren Murphy

An assassin named Remo Williams is trying to knock off the CEOs of major automobile manufacturers in Detroit and it’s not everyone’s favorite Master of Sinanju with the same name. Harold Smith, Head of CURE, and Chiun, Remo’s trainer, are both concerned that this man might actually be Remo’s missing father (Remo is an orphan) and so they try very hard to keep Remo away from the case while Chiun struggles to protect the CEOs by himself.

Naturally, the harder they try to keep Remo out of the Detroit trouble, the more interested in it he becomes with the totally predictable result that he meets the man who appears to be his father. Remo then tries to bond with the man who is an assassin like him, and the man tries to get Remo to help him with his hits. This brings them into conflict with Chiun and (again, totally predictably) Remo is forced to choose between the two men.

The ending does show Murphy’s chops as a mystery writer, however, when Smith finally pieces together who the assassin was and how he came to be using Remo’s name. In terms of the long term storyline, the incident also reawakens Remo’s strong interest in learning about his biological family—much to Chiun’s distress.

70 The Eleventh Hour by Warren Murphy

This is one of the best Destroyer novels in a long time. A Korean American young man, having listened to legends of Sinanju from his grandfather, decides to try and prove if the legends are true by sneaking into North Korea. There he videotapes the caretaker of Chiun’s property telling him that the Master of Sinanju is working for America. The young man, believing that America is corrupt and the current administration needs to be brought down, decides to bring the information to the Soviets creating a very exciting threat to the secrecy of CURE.

In the meantime, Remo is caught in a fire trying to rescue people and the incident awakens Shiva the Destroyer within him. Shiva does not recognize Chiun, which tells Chiun that Remo has been totally possessed. To strengthen Remo against Shiva, Chiun decides to get Remo back to Sinanju believing that immersing his pupil even further in the discipline will fortify him against Shiva. But how to get Remo to do as Chiun wants?

Chiun, in the aftermath of the encounter with Shiva, begins to exhibit signs of advanced illness and asks Remo to take him home to Sinanju where he prepares to pass the mantle of reigning master of Sinanju on to Remo. In doing so, both Chiun and Remo make speeches which the Korean American (whom the Soviets sent back to Sinanju) also videotapes. Remo also meets the first villager of Sinanju that he does not despise and begins to fall in love. It appears that there is hope for another generation of masters of Sinanju.

While Remo is exploring his new romance, the Soviets bring President Ronald Reagan proof that CURE exists and that Sinanju is working for America. They demand that Reagan shut down CURE and give Sinanju to them and Reagan decides to comply. Smith is given the shutdown order, attempts to destroy all of his computer data (something goes wrong, but he doesn’t know that), and then travels to Sinanju to try and get Chiun to kill Remo (no one thinks that’s going to happen) and then to kill himself.

When Chiun learns that Reagan wants his contract transferred to the Soviets, Chiun insists on a formal ceremony and then things really get interesting… I’ve given away a lot of the plot here, but not the crucial stuff. This is a good one!

152 Continental Divide by Warren Murphy

The Destroyer series is the story of the glorious House of Sinanju—a 5000 year old line of assassins who created the original martial art from which all others are pale derivatives. The current master and his pupil have been hired by a secret agency within the U.S. government (called CURE) to clean up crime and protect the country by working outside the constitution. Each book features ridiculous parodies of current events, politicians and celebrities. This novel focuses on a poorly defined conspiracy to destroy bridges in the U.S. to boost the air-freight industry. Since it is happening during the presidential election, parodies of Trump and Clinton, both of whom look utterly ridiculous, try to spin the events to boost their campaigns. At the same time, parodies of the Scooby Doo characters are also investigating the crimes.

Inside Sinanju by Richard Sapier and Warren Murphy

(Formerly titled The Assassin's Handbook)

This quick guide to the Destroyer series doesn’t really offer very much other than a great novella reviewing the events of Remo’s training in the first book from the perspective of his trainer, Chiun. When Sapier and Murphy wrote Created, the Destroyer, they did not yet have a full understanding of what Sinanju was. (Let’s be honest, they probably didn’t have any real understanding of it.) This retcon permited them to tweak the origin story to fit in to the understanding developed later in the series and by itself it is worth the price of admission.

There are also a bunch of throw-ins such as a list of major villains, snippets about the main cast, and tongue-in-cheek addressing of some of the issues that have come up in the series. The one thing I found most interesting was Warren Murphy’s list of his ten favorite Destroyer novels and why he felt that way. In a couple of cases I strongly disagreed with him, but his reasoning interested me.

Here's Murphy’s top ten with the number of stars I gave the same books:

1. Chinese Puzzle ****
2. Union Bust ****
3. Judgment Day *****
4. Assassin’s Playoff ***
5. Funny Money ****
6. In Enemy Hands ***
7. Mugger Blood *
8. Killer Chromosomes *****
9. Firing Line ****
10. Profit Motive **