First let me say that I have no quarrel with books that offer simple escapism and they certainly trump TV, but one weeps to consider how many millions of trivial words our fathers read as they devoured serials like The Destroyer. The Father Judd bought and read every Nick Carter, Carter Brown, Executioner and Death Merchant as well. When we were kids and had to spend weekends at his apartment I'd read the Remo Williams and Death Merchant entries which seemed the best of the bunch. But it had been a long time since I even gave them a thought. Then, last week, Titus Techera's podcast covered Lethal Weapon II and his guest, Pete Spiliakos, discussed the influence that co-screenwriter Warren Murphy had on writer/director Shane Black and on the film. As with Murphy's books, that means over-the-top villains, an omnipresent threat of crime and the necessity, therefore, of the good guys taking the law into their own hands.

This all made more sense when Murphy and his then co-author, Richard Sapir, introduced The Destroyer, in the '70s. It is hardly a coincidence that Created, the Destroyer was published the same year that Dirty Harry hit theaters. This was a time when the feeling that crime and disorder were overwhelming American society was backed up by events on the ground. So the plot of the first novel sees a secretive government agency, CURE, frame a Newark, NJ police officer who has no family for the murder of a drug dealer. As that ex-cop, Remo Williams, awaits his execution, he is visited on death row and offered the opportunity to become CURE's chief assassin in its war on crime. After they fake his death he is brought to a training facility where he is taken under the wing of an elderly Korean teacher, Chiun, who is a master of the martial arts that were developed in, and named for his village of Sinanju. While Remo becomes the Destroyer of the series title, Chiun always remains the more deadly of the two and effectively Remo's substitute father. This side of the stories is played to especially good comic effect.

The books are obviously dated nowadays, when crime has tailed off so much. And you ought not be looking for much literary merit. But they still function rather well as pure escapism if you can get past some obvious stereotyping. I even grabbed a free PDF of this one. Having already failed as an intended rival film series to James Bond and a pretty feeble tv pilot, there's word a new tv series is in the works, so it's the perfect time to get acquainted--or reacquainted, as the case may be.

(Reviewed:14-Jan-23)

Grade: (C+) Orrin C. Judd

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Warren Murphy Links:

    -AUTHOR SITE: Warrenmurphy.com
    -WIKIPEDIA: Warren Murphy
    -FILMOGRAPHY: Warren Murphy (IMDB)
    -GOOGLE BOOK: Created, The Destroyer: Number 1 in Series
    -WIKIPEDIA: THe Destroyer
    -FAN SITE: Destroyer Books
    -PDF: Created, the Destroyer (PDF Drive)
    -ENTRRY: The Destroyer (Spy Guys and Gals)
    -TV Tropes: Literature / The Destroyer
    -OBIT: Warren Murphy, Writer and Creator of Remo Williams, Dies at 81 (NY Times, 9/18/15)
    -TRIBUTE: The Unintentional Futurist: Warren Murphy (1933-2015) (RJ Carter, 09/06/2015, Critical Blast)
    -TRIBUTE: Departed, the Destroyer: Rest in peace, Warren Murphy (Trent, The Violent World of Parker)
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    -
    -PROFILE: Destroying a Right-Thinking Series (James Mullaney, October 18, 2005, National Review)
    -INTERVIEW: Warren Murphy and James Mullaney: Building a Better Destroyer (RJ Carter, 03/28/2007, Critical Blast)
    -INTERVIEW: with Devin Murphy: Q&A on the classic paperback series 'The Destroyer' (Pulp Pulpit, 8/30/17)
    -INTERVIEW: WARREN MURPHY (THE DESTROYER) (THIERRY ATTARD'S DOUBLE FEATURE, 30 May 2008)
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    -PODCAST: The Destroyer! (Remo Williams) With RJ Carter, Shane Plays Ep. 131: R.J. Carter, the author on The Destroyer book series! Co-created by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir, Remo Williams and his mentor Chiun have been stopping the bad guys for America and saving the world with the ancient, mysterious and powerful martial art of Sinanju since 1971 (and they're still going strong). Martial arts, spies, buddy cops, over the top villains, political satire and more: it's not just your average "action guy" series. (Shane Plays, Jan 11, 2018)
    -ESSAY: PROUD TO BE ASHAMED: THE DESTROYER (Thomas Parker, 10/11/10, Blackgate)
    -BOOK LIST: The Destroyer (FictionDB)
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    -ARCHIVES: Warren Murphy (Internet Archive)
    -REVIEW SITE: The Destroyer (The Imaginary Realms of Gilbert M. Stack)
    -REVIEW: of The Destroyer #1- Created The Destroyer by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir (NJSkinny)
    -REVIEW: of Created, the Destroyer (Rishika, The Book Review Station)
    -REVIEW: of Created, The Destroyer (Civilian Reader)
    -REVIEW: of Created, The Destroyer (Reader's Muse)
    -REVIEW: of Created, The Destroyer (Tyson, Speculative Book Review)
    -REVIEW: of Created, The Destroyer (Dysfunctional Literacy)
    -REVIEW: of Created, The Destroyer (Amazing Stories)
    -REVIEW: of
    -REVIEW: of The Destroyer #17: Last War Dance (Joe Kenney, Glorious Trash)
    -REVIEW: of Mugger Blood (The Destroyer #30) by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir (Biblio Rex, Tales from the Bookworm's Lair)
    -REVIEW: of Dying Space (The Destroyer #47) by Warren Murphy (Steve, MysteryFile)
    -REVIEW: of The Destroyer: Savage Song by Warren Murphy (Trent, The Violent World of Parker)
    -REVIEW: of The Destroyer # 100: Last Rites by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir (T. Michael Testi, BlogCritics)
    -REVIEW: of The Destroyer #151: Bully Pulpit by Warren Murphy and RJ Carter (Mike 'Ace' Maillaro, Critical Blast)
    FILM:


    -FILMOGRAPHY: Warren Murphy (IMDB)
    -FILMOGRAPHY: Warren Murphy (Metacritic)
    -FILMOGRAPHY: The Eiger Sanction (1975) (IMDB)
    -FILMOGRAPHY: Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins (1985) (IMDB)
    -FILMOGRAPHY: Lethal Weapon II (IMDB)
    -FILM: Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins (You Tube)
    -WIKIPEDIA: Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins
    -FILMOGRAPHY: Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins (Rotten Tomatoes)
    -FILMOGRAPHY: Guy Hamilton (IMDB)
    -FILMOGRAPHY: Fred Ward (IMDB)
    -FILMOGRAPHY: Joel Grey (IMDB)
    -VIDEO: Remo Williams The Destroyer: TV Pilot - The Prophecy
    -ENTRY: Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins film by Hamilton [1985] (Encyclopedia Britannica)
    -TV Tropes: Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins
    -PODCAST: New Year Podcast, Lethal Weapon 2: Here’s a sequel to the Christmas Lethal Weapon podcast I recorded with Pete Spiliakos. This time, we talk about not just screenwriter Shane Black, but also his friend, novelist Warren Murphy, author of a successful series, The Destroyer, and writer of the Lethal Weapon 2 screenplay. We do our best to explain how middlebrow art worked, how storytellers dramatized the great American democracy one issue at a time, a skill since lost, but which audiences and artists both might use (Titus Techera, January 3, 2023, ACF Podcast)
    -ARTICLE: Remo Williams Heading To TV As ‘The Destroyer’ Series Adaptation Set From Gordon Smith, Adrian Askarieh & Sony Pictures Television (Peter White, 12/08/22, deadline)
    -ARTICLE: Remo Williams The Destroyer Series Adaptation Coming to Sony Pictures Television (JERRY MACKENZIE, DEC 9, 2022, MovieWeb)
    -ARTICLE: Better Call Saul's Gordon Smith Producing The Destroyer Series For Sony (TATIANA HULLENDER, DEC 8, 2022, Screen Rant)
    -ARTICLE: WILL THE ADVENTURE GO ON FOR REMO WILLIAMS? (JACK MATHEWS, OCT. 18, 1985, LA Times)
    -OBIT: Actor Fred Ward, of 'Tremors,' 'The Right Stuff' fame, dies : Fred Ward, a veteran actor who brought a gruff tenderness to tough-guy roles in “The Right Stuff,” “The Player” and “Tremors,” has died (AP, 13 May 2022)
    -FILM REVIEW: Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins (Gene Siskel, Chicago Tribune)
    -FILM REVIEW: Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins (Kevin Thomas, LA Times)
    -FILM REVIEW: Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins (TV Guide)
    -FILM REVIEW: Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins (Rita Kempley, Washington Post)
    -FILM REVIEW: Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins (Adam Lowes, Cinevue)
    -FILM REVIEW: Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins (Timeout)
    -FILM REVIEW: Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins (Paul Willistein, The Morning Call)
    -FILM REVIEW: Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins (Variety)
    -FILM REVIEW: Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins (Michael Sragow, The Atlantic)
    -FILM REVIEW: Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins (Paul Attanasio, Washington Post)
    -FILM REVIEW: Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins (Film Frenzy)
    -FILM REVIEW: Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins (Mike Massie, Gone with the Twins)
    -FILM REVIEW: Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins (Ed Travis, Cinapse)
    -FILM REVIEW: Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins (David Nusair, Reel Film Reviews)
    -FILM REVIEW: Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins (Emanuel Levy)
    -FILM REVIEW: Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins (Vincent Canby, NY Times)
    -FILM REVIEW: Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins (Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader)
    -FILM REVIEW: Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins (Michael Sragow, The New Yorker)
    -FILM REVIEWS: Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins (Letterboxd)

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