Book Review: The Day Remo Died, by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir

This book is a sort of prequel to Created, The Destroyer, which is the first book in The Destroyer series.  This is a novella was published in 1985, several years after the first book.  It takes place during a window that surrounds the material in the first book, and it is told from Chiun's perspective.  The characters in this book are quite different than the characters in the first two books in the series, and are apparently consistent with the characters in book 3 onward.

I read this immediately on the heels of Created, The Destroyer, and found Chiun's side of the story very interesting.  There is much more detail about various aspects of Remo's training, as well as why he is apparently so easily trained by Chiun, who believes that an inferior white man could not possibly master the art of Sinanju, which should really only be taught to those of Korean descent.  That being said, the novella is only 85 pages long.  Anyway, Remo surprises Chiun at every turn, and ultimately the story takes a somewhat mystical turn which is not seen in the Remo Williams film at all (though, since they planned a series of films, it is quite possible it may have been explored at some point had the film series continued).

By having characters which are more consistent both with the film, and with books 3 onward, this book has interested me in reading at least through book 3 before deciding on whether to continue with the series (the whole series is 150+ books, so it is a considerable investment).  In fact, I believe some of Chiun's dialogue in this book is fairly close to some of that in the film, although I still remember many lines from the film which have not yet appeared in my reading.

I highly recommend this to anyone who has read the first book, as it does make the series more interesting.  Chiun has motivations that no other character in the series is aware of at this point, and I wonder if it will all come out at some point.