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The Destroyer #80
Death Sentence
Remo is on death row and he’s next on the list. His memory is foggy and details don’t match up. Smitty is out of commission and the very foundation of CURE is at risk. Chiun needs to intervene with the interim director. An anthropologist is determined to find a man able to perform impossible feats of incredible power, but Remo’s skills are in question. Everyone is expendable.
ABOUT THE Sentenced to death for a crime he didn’t commit, ex-cop Remo Williams is rescued from the electric chair and recruited by a secret government organization as an assassin, targeting criminals who are beyond the law. Remo’s trainer is a curmudgeonly old Korean named Chiun, whose mastery of the terrifyingly powerful martial art of Sinanju makes him the deadliest man alive.
The winning combination of action, humor, and mysticism has made the Destroyer one of the best-selling series of all time. With more than 150 books and over 50 million copies sold worldwide, the Destroyer has been praised by the LA Times as “flights of hilarious satire,” and gave birth to the mythology of the brash young Westerner taught by an ancient, inscrutable master.
ABOUT THE Sentenced to death for a crime he didn’t commit, ex-cop Remo Williams is rescued from the electric chair and recruited by a secret government organization as an assassin, targeting criminals who are beyond the law. Remo’s trainer is a curmudgeonly old Korean named Chiun, whose mastery of the terrifyingly powerful martial art of Sinanju makes him the deadliest man alive.
The winning combination of action, humor, and mysticism has made the Destroyer one of the best-selling series of all time. With more than 150 books and over 50 million copies sold worldwide, the Destroyer has been praised by the LA Times as “flights of hilarious satire,” and gave birth to the mythology of the brash young Westerner taught by an ancient, inscrutable master.
- GenresAdventure
208 pages, Paperback
First published April 3, 1990
8 people are currently reading
72 people want to read
About the author
Warren Murphy
294 books123 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.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
January 10, 2025
I started rereading this series in 2021 and this is one of the better novels in the first eighty. The existence of Remo Williams is published in the National Enquirer with a lot of accurate facts, although there is no mention of CURE. Upon seeing the cover story, Harold Smith, Director of CURE, suffers a heart attack. The following chapter shows Remo waking up on death row in a Florida prison, having apparently just been transferred there from New Jersey where he’s told he has spent the last twenty years on death row. His own memory is fuzzy, and when, over the next several chapters, he has small pieces of memory and dreams—they don’t quite match the history we know.
How Remo got on death row is the mystery at the heart of the story. Chiun has returned to Sinanju. And Harold Smith, we discover, is in a coma which the new director of CURE wants to make certain he never recovers from. This is an exciting—read it in one sitting—novel that is great not because it recaptures Remo and Chiun at their best, but because it offers Remo in such an unusual light.
How Remo got on death row is the mystery at the heart of the story. Chiun has returned to Sinanju. And Harold Smith, we discover, is in a coma which the new director of CURE wants to make certain he never recovers from. This is an exciting—read it in one sitting—novel that is great not because it recaptures Remo and Chiun at their best, but because it offers Remo in such an unusual light.
July 12, 2020
I was in the mood for some comfort reading, so I re-read this pulp Scifi from my youth. Still fun.
March 16, 2023
#80 in the Destroyer series. Emperor Smith suffers a heart attack, triggering succession protocols for Remo and Chiun. Much chaos ensues.
February 15, 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. Life has gotten very complicated for the people at CURE. Chiun returns to Sinanju for a visit. Remo wakes up in the prison he was 'killed' in, on death row with no memory of the last 20 years. Smith is out of a job and suffering a heart attack. And someone new is at the controls of CURE and his motives are not pure. Recommended
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews