Destroyer 55 Master's Challenge by Warren Murphy
Destroyer 55 Master’s Challenge by Warren Murphy
This is one of the storylines that stands out most clearly in my memory from my first reading of this series more than 20 years ago. It’s also one of the best all around Destroyer novels. In it, Remo discovers he has peers—men and women from rival houses whose superior skills make them capable of killing even the Masters of Sinanju. As if that is not enough, the reader is also introduced to the master who trained Chiun as Chiun initiates an ancient Sinanju tradition, The Master’s Challenge—a coming of age ceremony in which the coming master proves himself in battles to the death with the scions of these rival houses. As if that isn’t enough, the Dutchman returns, even more insane than when we last saw him, still determined to fulfill his vow to Chiun’s first student and kill the reigning master.
Murphy is at the top of his form in this one. The rival masters are all at least respectable and most are genuinely likeable, and Remo doesn’t want to fight them. But honor and tradition are part of the life’s blood of all of these ancient houses and Remo’s desires do not seem to matter. So this is a great problem with a lot of raw emotion as Remo faces off against the other masters and Chiun confronts the Dutchman, but that still isn’t everything that Murphy has to offer in this book. While Remo is MIA dealing with Sinanju’s business, Harold Smith has to run CURE all by himself and he has uncovered a doozy of a problem. Someone is planning to assassinate the president and they have found a way to bypass the Secret Service to get at him. Smith has never seemed to think too highly of Remo, but having to do everything himself gives him a new appreciation for the talents of his enforcement arm, and the reader a new appreciation for Smith’s own dedication to duty and his own impeccable sense of honor.
Murphy brilliantly balances all of these storylines as he steadily guides Remo to the most important fight of his life. And the consequences of this novel continue to reverberate in all the remaining books including the legacy series about Remo’s children. If you have never read a Destroyer novel, I would not start with this book. But if you’ve read even a handful, this novel is a must read.
