Book Review: The Destroyer #26: In Enemy Hands by Richard Sapir & Warren Murphy
When JFK realized that there were certain threats to America and the world that could not be handled by normal government agencies and it wasn’t wise to rely on random good people stepping up, he turned to bureaucrat and former CIA man Harold W. Smith. Smith devised an agency to fight unsuspected infections, CURE. Most of CURE is people who gather information or move resources and have no idea who they work for, but it also needed an enforcement arm. Young police officer Remo Williams was framed for murder and put to death to make him officially not exist. He was then trained in the martial arts of Sinanju by an ancient Korean named Chuin. Now when secret danger threatens, CURE can call upon…the Destroyer!
I’ve posted before about my love of men’s adventure paperback series of the 1970s. The Destroyer was one of my favorites. The first book was written in 1963, but most publishers rejected it until Pinnacle Books was looking for something to go with its successful Mack Bolan series in 1971. That first book was honestly pretty bad, but sold enough to get sequels, and the authors quickly realized that the relationship between Remo and Chiun was the key charm point. At that point, the series really took off.
In this volume, published in 1976, a Senate investigation into CIA malfeasance somehow leads to an order to disarm Sunflower, the Central Intelligence Agency’s European answer to the elite Soviet assassin squad known as Treska. Now that Sunflower can’t fight back effectively, Treska goes ahead and wipes out the American team. With no real opposition, the Communists can assassinate anyone they please, and the Moscow masters have a long list of targets.
Back in the States, the accident-prone president (transparently Gerald Ford) realizes the pooch is screwed badly, and as long as the Senate is looking, the CIA will not be able to strike back. So he reluctantly contacts CURE and Smitty unleashes Remo on the problem with Chiun tagging along as usual.
Remo clears out the Treska problem in a few days, but the Russians have their own human superweapon to unleash, Ludmilla Tchernova the flawless beauty. Her mission, find Remo, learn the secret of his strength, and then get him killed.
Good: The Destroyer series is more directly humorous than most of its rivals. The constant bickering of Remo and Chiun, the social and political satire, and often black comedy situations make these books enjoyable. Remo is the standard omnicompetent action hero in abilities (and Chuin is outright superhuman) but this is undercut by him being kind of an ass in ways that are not meant to be admired.
The books also excel at introducing minor or throwaway characters in a way that makes them memorable, not just a pile of skills and plot points. Like luckless CIA agent Walter Forbier who got a degree in a “good jobs” field only to get drafted and have his training obsolete by the time he got out, married only to have lesbianism suddenly become slightly socially acceptable, and joining Sunflower on the day they all die.
Ludmilla is more or less the villain of the book. Born with fortunate genes and family connections, she has been crafted into the “perfect” honey trap, largely through her own supreme vanity. She’s the kind of woman who will offer ice cream cones to children, so she can study and imitate their smiles of sudden joy, then drop the ice cream in the dirt and turn away bored. Her outward emotions are entirely artificial and thus nearly flawless. Ludmilla’s beauty is such that she can even partially bypass Remo’s cynicism and willpower to make him fall in love with her. Most impressive of all, she is the first woman in years not to immediately lose all ability to resist once exposed to Remo’s lovemaking.
It’s revealed that Remo and Chiun were responsible for President Nixon resigning rather than taking America down with him.
Less good: There’s a bunch of 1970s racism, sexism and ethnic prejudice here. This is played for comedy with Chiun, who as the world’s greatest assassin, holder of the true story of history, and the master of the sun source of all martial arts understandably considers everyone else below him. Remo, on the other hand, is a pig.
Like the later Parker/Stone combo, Sapir and Murphy are so strongly dedicated to their “mock everything” style of humor that it can suddenly come across as tasteless or nihilistic, and they sometimes run into blind spots in what they consider funny or important. (In real life, someone desperately does need to be making sure our intelligence agencies are doing the right thing and not screwing up.)
Content note: Lethal violence, often played for laughs. The aforementioned racism, sexism and ethnic prejudice. Extramarital sex, cuckolding.
Overall: A good example of the early days of the series. You can probably find many of the volumes in garage sales, used book stores and your grandparents’ attic (if not on the shelf where people can see it.) Skip the first book though; see if you can find the rewritten version published some years later.
