Remo Williams - The Destroyer

Randy's Guide to the Remo Williams - The Destroyer Books

Remo Williams is the main character in a series of men's adventure novels called The Destroyer. Remo Williams is a Newark cop who is framed for murder, then found guilty and executed. But the execution is faked, and Remo Williams is recruited into the secret USA government organization CURE. This organization was formed by John F. Kennedy to protect the country by working outside the Constitution.

Some consider The Destroyer novels to be spoofs of other men's adventure novels like The Executioner, while others read and enjoy them purely for adventure fiction enjoyment. Like The Executioner, The Destroyer novels are one of the longest running men's adventure novel series, with over 140 books in the series.

The second chapter of almost all of The Destroyer novels begins with the words, "His name was Remo, and..."

Remo Williams, Sinanju, CURE, and Harold Smith

Remo Williams is trained by a Korean master of Sinanju named Chiun. (Sinanju is the source of all martial arts knowledge, and judo, karate, and every other martial art is an imitation of the art of Sinanju.) The Korean village that Chiun hails from is also called Sinanju, and the money paid for his services is sent back to the village in order to pay for the poverty stricken village's needs.

CURE is run by Harold Smith, who also operates the Folcroft Sanitarium. Other than the President, Harold Smith, Chiun, and Remo, no one knows of the existence of CURE. (Although in some books Smith has an assistant. The assistant's role in these books is always very minor.) As of this writing, Smith is over 80 years old, and has always been the director of CURE. He is always described as humorless, efficient, and loyal to a fault. (Chiun always calls him "the Emperor Smith").

The character of Remo Williams has changed through the years. In the earlier novels, he is an almost traditional secret agent/assassin type character: he uses guns, eats red meat, smokes, and sleeps around. As the novels progress, Remo becomes more of an ascetic, eventually eating nothing but fresh fish, fresh fruits and vegetables, and rice. He and Chiun both possess almost-superhuman powers as a result of both their training regimens and diets.

When a U.S. President leaves office, he receives a visit from Remo, who uses an ancient Sinanju secret to erase the existence of CURE from the former President's memory.

The Destroyer Novels - Authors Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir

The Destroyer novels were originally co-written by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir, but in later years have been written by a variety of ghost writers. The first Destroyer novel was written in 1963 but wasn't published until 1971. Since 1971, at least four Destroyer novels have been released each year. During the 1970's, many of the early novels were written by both men, but eventually Richard Sapir left the series, and many of the later novels were written by Warren Murphy by himself.

In the 1980's, many of the novels were written and/or co-written by ghost-writers, including Will Murray, a pulp fiction expert and prolific ghost-writer who has also written several Doc Savage novels. Will Murray also wrote all of the Marvel Comics comic book adaptations of The Destroyer series. Many of the 1980's novels were co-written by Will Murray and one or the other of the original authors.

Richard Sapir passed away from a heart attack in 1987, and Will Murray wrote the series solo during much of the 1990's. After Murray left with The Destroyer #107, other writers took over. Mike Newton wrote #108 and #110, while Alan Philipson wrote #109.

Jim Mullaney wrote #111 through #131, then Mike Newton wrote #132 and #133.

Tim Somheil wrote #134 through #145.

I'll eventually write complete biographies of the authors of the novels and add those ot this section too.

The New Destroyer Novels

At the time of this writing, the novels are being written as The New Destroyer, and I just finished reading the 2nd of these, Choke Hold, which I'll review here shortly. (Choke Hold is #147 in the series, and is preceded by Guardian Angel, which is #146. These novels have been co-written by original author Warren Murphy and Jim Mullaney. These are the first Destroyer novels to give credit to another writer besides Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir. They're also noted by being published by Tor Books.

The Future of Randy's Guide to the Destroyer Novels and Remo Williams

My plan is to eventually summarize and review every book in the series. If I only do four novels a year, it will take me almost forty years to finish writing these The Destroyer novels. So obviously I'll have to write (and read) a little bit faster than that.

Really Cool Websites