What do you think?
Rate this book
The Destroyer #60
The End of the Game (Destroyer #60)
With OVER 50 MILLION BOOKS IN PRINT, the Destroyer Series is one of the longest running action series in history! New York Times Best-Selling Author, Warren Murphy and co-creator Richard Sapir have built an adventure series known for its wickedly pointed humor and witty satire. Now in The End of Game (#60) Remo and Chiun will be playing for their lives…
It’s hard being a billionaire super-genius and Abner Buell was bored.
Every game he created, he mastered – there was no competition. If he wanted something, he bought it. With more money than he knew how to spend, nothing was out of Abner’s reach.
What he needed was a new game, one novel enough to keep him interested.
Toying with people and forcing them to start a global apocalypse provided Abner with momentary diversion, but even that wasn’t enough.
Now there’s a new player and when the stakes are life and death, he only plays one way.
He plays to win.
FROM THE BOOK:
Remo punched in 2-4-2. The screen lit up. Bright green numbers appeared on a gray background. The numbers blinked for a moment and were replaced by letters. It was a message: “CONGRATULATIONS ON A SUCCESSFUL ASSIGNMENT. PLEASE TELL ME HOW WELL YOU DID.”
“Go ahead.” Pamela nudged Remo.
“We killed the man and the woman,” Remo said.
The screen printed out: “ARE YOU SURE?”
“Sure. He died well,” Remo said.
“YOU LIE,” said the machine.
“How do you know?”
“BECAUSE I CAN SEE YOU.”
The machine's cash drawer opened. A stack of hundred-dollar bills an inch high appeared.
“What's this for?” Remo asked.
“FOR YOU. WHO ARE YOU?”
Remo took the money and slammed it back into the cash drawer, then shoved the drawer shut.
“WHAT DO YOU WANT?” came the printed message.
“To destroy you,” Remo said. “I am coming to kill you.”
The machine blinked again as though in some sort of joy and flashed out an insane jumble of letters and numbers. Then it flashed again in capitals: “CONGRATULATIONS, WHOEVER YOU ARE. YOU ARE WORTH 50,000 POINTS.”
WHO IS THE DESTROYER?
Framed and “executed” for murdering a low-life drug dealer, Remo Williams was resurrected as the perfect killing machine, the man without a past, the one who’s called when things get tough.
Trained by Chiun, Korean master of Sinanju and the last of a line of assassins to kings, Remo joins CURE, a top secret U.S. agency whose simple mandate is to bring justice to those above the law.
How he does it, is up to him…
It’s hard being a billionaire super-genius and Abner Buell was bored.
Every game he created, he mastered – there was no competition. If he wanted something, he bought it. With more money than he knew how to spend, nothing was out of Abner’s reach.
What he needed was a new game, one novel enough to keep him interested.
Toying with people and forcing them to start a global apocalypse provided Abner with momentary diversion, but even that wasn’t enough.
Now there’s a new player and when the stakes are life and death, he only plays one way.
He plays to win.
FROM THE BOOK:
Remo punched in 2-4-2. The screen lit up. Bright green numbers appeared on a gray background. The numbers blinked for a moment and were replaced by letters. It was a message: “CONGRATULATIONS ON A SUCCESSFUL ASSIGNMENT. PLEASE TELL ME HOW WELL YOU DID.”
“Go ahead.” Pamela nudged Remo.
“We killed the man and the woman,” Remo said.
The screen printed out: “ARE YOU SURE?”
“Sure. He died well,” Remo said.
“YOU LIE,” said the machine.
“How do you know?”
“BECAUSE I CAN SEE YOU.”
The machine's cash drawer opened. A stack of hundred-dollar bills an inch high appeared.
“What's this for?” Remo asked.
“FOR YOU. WHO ARE YOU?”
Remo took the money and slammed it back into the cash drawer, then shoved the drawer shut.
“WHAT DO YOU WANT?” came the printed message.
“To destroy you,” Remo said. “I am coming to kill you.”
The machine blinked again as though in some sort of joy and flashed out an insane jumble of letters and numbers. Then it flashed again in capitals: “CONGRATULATIONS, WHOEVER YOU ARE. YOU ARE WORTH 50,000 POINTS.”
WHO IS THE DESTROYER?
Framed and “executed” for murdering a low-life drug dealer, Remo Williams was resurrected as the perfect killing machine, the man without a past, the one who’s called when things get tough.
Trained by Chiun, Korean master of Sinanju and the last of a line of assassins to kings, Remo joins CURE, a top secret U.S. agency whose simple mandate is to bring justice to those above the law.
How he does it, is up to him…
176 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1981
17 people are currently reading
82 people want to read
About the author
Warren Murphy
245 books120 followersWarren 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.
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.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
May 3, 2022
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.
If you liked this review, you can find more at www.gilbertstack.com/reviews.
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.
If you liked this review, you can find more at www.gilbertstack.com/reviews.
April 1, 2010
As with any Destroyer book, this was an easy read with an okay story. Destroyer books are always a fun read for me, and I like to throw one in between serious reads to let my brain rest up a bit.
September 12, 2021
Rating 3
A solid entry in the series I thought. Better than most .
Some good interactions between the main three characters.
Story itself was okay , downside being that it feels like the plot of CURE being discovered/files stolen/or something has been used quite a few times now and is becoming an unwelcome trope.
Still a definite recommendation though.
A solid entry in the series I thought. Better than most .
Some good interactions between the main three characters.
Story itself was okay , downside being that it feels like the plot of CURE being discovered/files stolen/or something has been used quite a few times now and is becoming an unwelcome trope.
Still a definite recommendation though.
July 26, 2020
A typical Destoyer novel. Lots of blood and satire.
April 5, 2022
#60 in the Destroyer series. A computer wizard schemes to incite a nuclear war. Much chaos ensues.
March 25, 2013
Sometimes I like to read something rough and tumble, like the "Executioner" series by Don Pendleton. Warren Murphy's The Destroyer series is right up there for really inventive violence, a real anti-hero, and an Asian martial arts masterwho believes "assassin" is as good of a career path as any other. In this volume, an insane video game designer, and his psycho girlfriend, are out to design the ultimate game at the end of which they will destroy the world. However they encounter Master Chiun and his disciple Remo Williams, who are just as violent, but on the side of saving the world. A really good story. By the way Hollywood, I'm still waiting for the rest of the adventure (Remo Williams, the Adventure Begins was a movie treatment of this series, but only one was made. Read it one weekend. It's cheaper than a movie and better than most.
February 13, 2016
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. Abner Buell is a genius. Not only can he play video games better than anyone, he can create them well enough to make billions and acquire a sizable following. When he uses his game creations to turn men into killers and women in sultry wantons, CURE takes action. Recommended
July 27, 2010
more of the same. Good.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews