FRIDAY’S FORGOTTEN BOOKS #774: THE NEW DESTROYER: GUARDIAN ANGEL By Warren Murphy and James Mullaney

Can you go home again? Warren Murphy attempts it in The New Destroyer: Guardian Angel with the help of James Mullaney. The New Destroyer: Guardian Angel was published by TOR Books in 2007 as a reboot of the almost 40-year-old paperback series that first appeared in 1972.

Remo Williams returns with his Korean mentor Chiun, the Master of Sinanju, to help Dr. Harold W. Smith of the super-secret agency CURE counter the threat at the Southern Border.

General Santa Anna motivates thousands of illegal aliens to rearrange the border of the United States and Mexico. Only Remo Williams can stop the them, but first he has to face the only woman that ever killed him!

Fantastic Fiction online shows 155 volumes in the Destroyer series (including “The New Destroyer.” You can check that out here.

In the early 1970s, The Destroyer paperbacks were a publishing phenomenon. Warren Murphy and his then writing partner, Richard Sapir, created a unique Government operative in Remo Williams whose adventures sold millions of copies. The New Destroyer: Guardian Angel includes the familiar action/adventure plot, but with a new focus on actual threats to the U.S. The New Destroyer: Guardian Angel is #147 of the 155 books in the series. Are you a fan of The Destroyer series? GRADE: B

8 thoughts on “FRIDAY’S FORGOTTEN BOOKS #774: THE NEW DESTROYER: GUARDIAN ANGEL By Warren Murphy and James Mullaney

  1. Jeff+Meyerson

    Isn’t his mentor Chiun, not China? I hate autocorrect.

    I read a bunch of these in the ’70s. They were fun, for the most part. But I have no urge to revisit it now.

    Reply
  2. Fred Blosser

    General Santa Anna? Well, it doesn’t sound any crazier than the current mess where Trump and Abbott set up barbed wire and demonise the immigrants, and the Democrats (and the media) let them control the narrative with invective Hitler would have approved. I read most of the original series up to the mid-’80s, when Richard Sapir left the series and Murphy continued solo. I remember a recurring peripheral character was a scheming Asian-American newscaster called “Chita Ching,” a cross between CBS’ Connie Chung and the Dragon Lady. I don’t think they’d get away with that now, any more than the casting in the 1985 movie REMO WILLIAMS where Chuin was played by Joel Grey.

    Reply
    1. george Post author

      Fred, there were over a dozen Men’s Action paperback series in the 1970s and 1980s–THE EXECUTIONER, THE BUTCHER, THE LONE WOLF, etc.–and they sold well…until they didn’t.

      Reply
  3. Cap'n Bob

    Warren Murphy contracted with me to write a book with him many years ago1 It wasn’t a Remo Williams! He was supposed to outline the three parts of it and I was supposed to write it! By the time I finished Part One he said he’d retired and dumped the whole thing in my lap! I was very slow but I eventually finished it! He didn’t like it and it never went anywhere! I’ve tried a couple of times to revive it over the years but the fact that it was written on three different computers made the formatting a nightmare!

    Reply

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