Ado connection

The Destroyer #58

by Warren Murphy, Richard Sapir

Drug-dealing appears to be down in several major American cities, but it’s really just a statistical oddity: someone’s got teenagers doing the dealing, and juvenile charges don’t appear in the crime stats. The trail leads Remo and Chiun to Detroit, where they discover that the newest engine of commerce in the Motor City may be high octane heroin, lining the pockets of some very well-off autoworkers’ kids. Autoworkers who are all congregants of a rather…unusual…new church.

Remo Williams is The Destroyer, an all-American cop recruited—through highly unorthodox methods—into a secret government law-enforcement organization. Trained in the esoteric martial art of Sinanju by his aged Korean mentor, Chiun, Remo is America's last line of defense against mad scientists, organized crime, ancient undead gods, and anything else that threatens the Constitution. An action-adventure series leavened with social and political satire, the Destroyer novels have been thrilling readers worldwide for decades.

Genres: Adventure, Fiction, Action

217 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 1984

About the author

Warren Murphy was an American author, most famous as the co-creator of The Destroyer series, the basis for the film Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins. He worked as a reporter and editor and after service during the Korean War, he drifted into politics.

Murphy also wrote the screenplay for Lethal Weapon 2. He is the author of the Trace and Digger series. With Molly Cochran, he completed two books of a planned trilogy revolving around the character The Grandmaster, The Grandmaster (1984) and High Priest (1989). Murphy also shares writing credits with Cochran on The Forever King and several novels under the name Dev Stryker. The first Grandmaster book earned Murphy and Cochran a 1985 Edgar Award for Best Paperback Original, and Murphy's Pigs Get Fat took the same honor the following year.

His solo novels include Jericho Day, The Red Moon, The Ceiling of Hell, The Sure Thing and Honor Among Thieves. Over his career, Murphy sold over 60 million books.

He started his own publishing house, Ballybunion, to have a vehicle to start The Destroyer spin-off books. Ballybunion has reprinted The Assassin's Handbook, as well as the original works Assassin's Handbook 2, The Movie That Never Was (a screenplay he and Richard Sapir wrote for a Destroyer movie that was never optioned), The Way of the Assassin (the wisdom of Chiun), and New Blood, a collection of short stories written by fans of the series.

He served on the board of the Mystery Writers of America, and was a member of the Private Eye Writers of America, the International Association of Crime Writers, the American Crime Writers League and the Screenwriters Guild.

Reviews

[Gilbert Stack · Rating 2 out of 5]

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.

If you liked this review, you can find more at www.gilbertstack.com/reviews.

[Beorn · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am giving this two stars because, while the plot was ok and it was entertaining, the personalities of Remo and Chiun were a little off. Remo investigated where he is usually somewhat clueless and there was almost none of the usual banter which is a cornerstone of the relationship between Remo and Chiun. This volume obviously suffered from the ghostwriter that worked on it. He is not one of the repeating ghostwriters of the series, so this was a one off for him and it shows.

[Jeff J. · Rating 4 out of 5]

#58 in the Destroyer series. Remo & Chiun uncover a drug trafficking operation. Much chaos ensues.

[Chad E Spilman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty funny characters with a moral duty to protect children and uncover a church and auto shop front to deal drugs.

[Alan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Rating 2.5

An okay read that wasn’t bad as a stand-alone action-adventure novel.
However as an entry in the Destroyer series it was definitely in the bottom third. Whoever the ghost writer was it seems like they were given a single page resume of the main characters skills, descriptions etc and a second page detailing what the plot had to be about.
So although the plot could work as a Destroyer novel, if a very minor one, there was nothing else about it that made it a Destroyer novel. There was none of the humour in the interactions between the main characters and I even missed the ridiculous new skills that Remo acquires for a single novel which are never mentioned again. Missing from action was the satire and general humour that make the best novels in the series.
So although it might have been a 3 star it just wasn’t entertaining enough for that, at least for me

[Little Timmy · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of the big men's adventure series from the 70's than ran an impressive 145 books. The series while an adventure/action story is also full of satire toward much of the mainstream fads and icons of the time. An interesting main character and the sarcastic mentor makes this a funny action/adventure read. The infamy of the crimes staggers even the aged Chiun. Children are being killed in large numbers with drugs being at the base of the crimes. To the old Master for whom children are a blessing, this is the worst of crimes and he and Remo are determined destroy the doer. Recommended