Return Engagement

The Destroyer #71

by Warren Murphy, Richard Sapir

Jack-booted stormtroopers. Mobs howling for racial purity. And on the podium, a man ranting and raving and holding his followers spellbound as swastika flags waved above them. Out of what hellish depth of the past had the hideously scarred man who called himself Herr Lutsturz emerged...with his artificial limbs that gave him superhuman strength...with his voluptuous blonde assistant Ilsa who seduced what he couldn't destroy...and with his burning desire to kill Dr. Harold W. Smith, head of the top-secret U.S. Agency CURE, even if he had to rip America into bloody shreds to do it...? Remo and Chiun had to find the answer to this monstrous mystery and the antidote to this irresistible evil.

Genres: Thriller, Adventure

253 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 5, 1988

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 5 out of 5]

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.

[Alan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rating 4

A really enjoyable entry in the series I thought.
Missed this back when I was first reading the series cannot remember why.
The humour between all the main characters was spot on.
The chapters where Chiun and Remo infiltrate a neo nazi aryan camp posing as new recruits was just the right side of bonkers.
The plot was actually one of the better ones as well.

All round a very entertaining read and definitely recommended

[HOWARD R BELOTE · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very Good Story

Good story. Chiun and Remo, now working for Cure and Dr. Wilson again, had to track down and kill a Cyborg who was trying to kill every Doctor named Harold Wilson to even a 40 year old grudge. Great Read.

[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. Imagine a device that can melt titanium. Imagine if this device, called the nebulizer, is in the hands of a former Nazi war criminal suddenly back from the dead. Then imagine that this Nazi is filled with hatred for the man who ruined his life, Harold Smith. Recommended

[Travis · Rating 3 out of 5]

In order to gain his revenge on the head of C.U.R.E., a nazi, kept alive by cybernetics, is hunting down and killing everyone named 'Harold Smith' that he and his neo-nazi cult can find.
Remo and Chuin get caught in the middle, of course.

A wacky villain with a crazy, nymphomaniac neo-nazi girl for a sidekick, lots of fighting and humor and plain, grey Harold Smith gets to take part in some of the action.