Skull Duggery

The Destroyer #83

by Warren Murphy (Series Creator), Richard Sapir (Series Creator), Will Murray

Destroyer 083: Skull Duggery [Mass Market Paperback]

Genres: Adventure

256 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1991

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 4 out of 5]

Remo is back and facing a problem he isn't quite prepared to deal with—an adversary who is almost as good as him. Add to that that Chiun has run off and is being his normally inscrutable and annoying self and Remo is trying to track him down. Throw in the young man who fended off tanks in Tiananmen Square with his own body and plots to kill or kidnap him. Wrap them all together and you get a fun Destroyer novel involving Chiun’s early career and the skull of Genghis Khan. Oh, and there is also a tribute to America's favorite martial artist--Bruce Lee.

[Jeff J. · Rating 4 out of 5]

#83 in the Destroyer series. Remo & Chiun join the hunt for the treasure of Ghengis Kahn. Much chaos ensues.

[Alan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rating 3.5

Fun quick read in this long running series.
I never read this one first time round and found it more entertaining than I expected tbh.

[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 Chinese dissident survived Tiananmen Square and escaped to America with a special box holding a precious secret. CURE needs this refugee to stay in America but Chiun finds that the contents of the box point to a great lost treasure and suddenly he and the Chinese student are on their way back to China. Recommended