The Last Alchemist

The Destroyer #64

by Warren Murphy, Richard Sapir

Book by Murphy, Warren, Sapir, Richard

Genres: Adventure, Action

221 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1986

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 3 out of 5]

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.

[Alan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rating 3.5

One of the better novels at this point in the long running series.
More historical back story for Sinanju, some good interplay between the lead characters.
The ending was like hitting a brick wall i thought, very sudden but okay.
Overall a recommendation for readers of the series

[Steve · Rating 3 out of 5]

In this episode, Remo and Chiun face the spawn of a family of alchemists. His ability to turn lead into gold has made him rich beyond imagination. But all that glitters is not gold. And sometimes having too much gold can become a curse. Our heroes find a helper in a young lady who is the chief of security at a uranium repository. A bit out of character, Remo never seems to give her much attention, and it could be because she seems to have a problem with men. She has a nine-pound chip on her shoulder for some undisclosed reason and never misses a chance to remind those in her orbit that she is a woman who can open her own jars.

Remo is slowly disabled by coming into contact with some of the cursed gold and Chiun rides in to save him with an obligatory, "I told you so." Remo convalesces in a motel and eventually gets back to his normal ability.

Smith almost has to eat the blue pill when Fulcroft is surrounded by bad guys wanting to take the place over. Overall, this one seemed to drag a bit. A surprising revelation in this one is when Chiun admits to Remo that he knows about CURE and who they are really is working for. Even Remo is surprised.

3/5

[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. Someone is stealing uranium and CURE must find out who and why. Recommended

[Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of the best ones in the series, I thought.