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The Destroyer #30
Mugger Blood
When an old woman is murdered in broad daylight, Remo Williams and Chiun try to shut down the Saxon Lords, the street gang responsible
1 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1977
34 people are currently reading
108 people want to read
About the author
Warren Murphy
295 books124 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 - 16 of 16 reviews
June 30, 2010
An elderly German is brutally murdered by gang members; within a short time agents from several different countries start looking into their belongings. Remo is sent to find out what they are looking for. Remo decides not to bother with the mission, and instead sets out to avenge the murdered old lady and make the streets of New York safe again.
This is one of the best bits of social satire I have ever read. Don't read this if you have a “politically correct” overly sensitive view of racism; you'll hate it.
Favorite tidbits: Remo has this whole monologue with himself, thinking about what it costs to buy a politician while immobilizing a karate master who is trying to kill him. Quote: “Try to make other people moral and you are trying to ignite ice with a match.”
Warning, sex and graphic gory violence.
This is one of the best bits of social satire I have ever read. Don't read this if you have a “politically correct” overly sensitive view of racism; you'll hate it.
Favorite tidbits: Remo has this whole monologue with himself, thinking about what it costs to buy a politician while immobilizing a karate master who is trying to kill him. Quote: “Try to make other people moral and you are trying to ignite ice with a match.”
Warning, sex and graphic gory violence.
December 24, 2008
I've read a lot of the Destroyer books but this one stands out as the funniest of the lot. Absolutely hilarious.
April 17, 2014
This is definitely a difficult book to review. The satire in the Remo series has always been overblown and politically incorrect. They profess the kind of extreme-conservative world view that can rub a tolerant liberal the wrong way in many occasions. For me (being a liberal), they have still mostly been a fun read even if I do not share the professed values of the authors.
However, Mugger Blood is an extreme case. For the first 70-80 % of the story, it is openly racist towards the blacks in New York, showing them as illiterate, ape-like creatures who don't know the difference between right and wrong. The fact that it turns out to be the fault of a liberal politicians and corrupted principal and school district - that doesn't even try to educate the blacks, but rather incites them to further atrocities while claiming that all those who blame the said minority for something are racist themselves - doesn't remove the fact that most of the book is spent in racist dialogue.
Even though I understand the purpose of the satire, I think it was taken a bit too far and the end result is rather distasteful.
However, Mugger Blood is an extreme case. For the first 70-80 % of the story, it is openly racist towards the blacks in New York, showing them as illiterate, ape-like creatures who don't know the difference between right and wrong. The fact that it turns out to be the fault of a liberal politicians and corrupted principal and school district - that doesn't even try to educate the blacks, but rather incites them to further atrocities while claiming that all those who blame the said minority for something are racist themselves - doesn't remove the fact that most of the book is spent in racist dialogue.
Even though I understand the purpose of the satire, I think it was taken a bit too far and the end result is rather distasteful.
January 1, 2016
Okay, so I'm waffling between one star and two for this one, but I think of some of the stuff I've given two stars, and... yeah. No.
The Destroyer books are pulp, with all that implies. They occasionally mock social issues, and they have been known to make hamburger out of sacred cows. (This is particularly funny to me because I recall being told a story about one of the authors getting annoyed when they swapped writing teams with The Executioner for a bit and one of the things the visiting writing team did was have Chiun eat a hamburger. Which was apparently seen as dumb and not funny, which I get, but I also think it was the kind of thing they should possibly have expected going in.)
This one feels nasty in a way the others didn't, though. And there are no villains of note, and no particularly funny scenes, either.
Only for completists, I guess.
The Destroyer books are pulp, with all that implies. They occasionally mock social issues, and they have been known to make hamburger out of sacred cows. (This is particularly funny to me because I recall being told a story about one of the authors getting annoyed when they swapped writing teams with The Executioner for a bit and one of the things the visiting writing team did was have Chiun eat a hamburger. Which was apparently seen as dumb and not funny, which I get, but I also think it was the kind of thing they should possibly have expected going in.)
This one feels nasty in a way the others didn't, though. And there are no villains of note, and no particularly funny scenes, either.
Only for completists, I guess.
February 28, 2020
Remo Williams battles racism in New York City, and loses! I’m surprised this got published, until I remember it came out during the 1970s, before the politically correct cancel culture took hold. It can probably be considered a collectible since it is unlikely to ever be reprinted.
July 25, 2011
Fun stuff -- if crude and unforgivably racist.
July 1, 2015
The Destroyer series are my "lets kill an hour or two" books. Usually a good laugh. This one is extremely heavy towards the theory that "the liberals are destroying the world".
March 22, 2020
Fun read
History is about to repeat its self .The same Bullshit rises
Again and hurts the people it says it wants to help . Help people help them selves .
History is about to repeat its self .The same Bullshit rises
Again and hurts the people it says it wants to help . Help people help them selves .
May 30, 2020
Well this book was slightly…weird. It’s this ultra-reactionary satire on the horrors of liberal policy and how it has made the world horrible. In this story, New York City is overrun by extremely savage gang criminals. The police does nothing to stop this, but rather aids the gang members, out of fear of being called racists (every gang criminal in this story is black). There’s a rather spicy scene in which one of the gangs makes a bonfire and burns a busload of innocent people alive, and the police does not care in the slightest.
The Destroyer books are never very suspenseful because of how practically invulnerable Remo is, but this one is worse than most of them. Remo is mostly just bored with doing his death karate here, and is more interested in investigating how the liberal school system has failed the youth of America.
The weirdest part is the finale. Ok, so in the beginning of the book, Remo encounters this typical useless liberal policeman who would rather let people murder each other than stop them and risk being called a racist. So Remo holds this diatribe about how a real american police officer should be, which awakens the true police spirit in the guy. Fast forward to the end of the book where the whole gang of black thugs are trying to chase down Remo and Chiun. The policeman from the beginning now has awakened the police spirit in all of his colleagues, and they just straight up massacre the gang criminals. They even go something like ”All right let’s do this, let’s KILL EVERYONE!”. I don’t think that the authors think that this is the behaviour of good police, but then…what are they trying to say here?
To me, stories that are more about expressing opinions than about an engaging intrigue are never very fun. It doesn’t matter if agree with the opinions or not, it’s still very weak writing I think. I did not have a very good time reading this book, although I was a bit intrigued by the badness of it all.
The Destroyer books are never very suspenseful because of how practically invulnerable Remo is, but this one is worse than most of them. Remo is mostly just bored with doing his death karate here, and is more interested in investigating how the liberal school system has failed the youth of America.
The weirdest part is the finale. Ok, so in the beginning of the book, Remo encounters this typical useless liberal policeman who would rather let people murder each other than stop them and risk being called a racist. So Remo holds this diatribe about how a real american police officer should be, which awakens the true police spirit in the guy. Fast forward to the end of the book where the whole gang of black thugs are trying to chase down Remo and Chiun. The policeman from the beginning now has awakened the police spirit in all of his colleagues, and they just straight up massacre the gang criminals. They even go something like ”All right let’s do this, let’s KILL EVERYONE!”. I don’t think that the authors think that this is the behaviour of good police, but then…what are they trying to say here?
To me, stories that are more about expressing opinions than about an engaging intrigue are never very fun. It doesn’t matter if agree with the opinions or not, it’s still very weak writing I think. I did not have a very good time reading this book, although I was a bit intrigued by the badness of it all.
March 12, 2021
This is one of the worst Destroyer novels in the series thus far. I really can’t find anything positive to say about the plot. The story is slow moving and engaged in a seemingly endless satirical parody of the crime and law enforcement problems (plus the educational system problems) of New York City in the 1970s. It was positively painful to read, and if I weren’t rereading the whole series, I would have given up on it.
If you liked this review, you can find more at www.gilbertstack.com/reviews.
If you liked this review, you can find more at www.gilbertstack.com/reviews.
November 1, 2021
absolutely one of the best!
You guys wrote this too early! It would fit nicely in the political scene of today. Bring it back up, dust it off and do an up dated rewrite, keep up the good work!
You guys wrote this too early! It would fit nicely in the political scene of today. Bring it back up, dust it off and do an up dated rewrite, keep up the good work!
November 30, 2021
Appalling social views.
February 10, 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. Remo takes on violent street crime. Recommended
August 9, 2021
There was a time when Americas multibillion dollar ghettos were really violent.
Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir offering. Suitable for teens and adults. A story about what went on in our Kennedy style ghettos when we first started to build them. Historically accurate background material.
Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir offering. Suitable for teens and adults. A story about what went on in our Kennedy style ghettos when we first started to build them. Historically accurate background material.
January 17, 2009
If you are easily offended, do NOT read this one!
June 15, 2011
This book had some funny moments, but was very non-pc. This one is guaranteed to offend!
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews