Created, the Destroyer (The Destroyer #1) (1971) / The Day Remo Died (The Destroyer #0) (1982)

by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir

A secret U.S. government program frames Remo Williams, a nobody beat cop, and sentences him to death so he can be erased and repurposed as a deniable assassin. 

It also recruits Chiun, a master of the martial art Sinanju, to train Remo as a lethal operative.

 This is a serviceable launchpad for the franchise, especially once Chiun arrives and the book starts showing signs of the humorous personality for which the series is known. 

The early Remo/Chiun dynamic is characterized by mentor–student friction, bickering, growing affection, and a clash of worldviews. 

A problem is that this novel reads like an uneasy combination of two different types of story. 

In the first half, Remo is trained into a killing machine with almost mystical powers of destruction, which promises a Bond-level villain who can threaten the world (which I gather will come along soon enough in the series). 

The second half drops him into a mobster plot that would be more suitable for Mack Bolan and has Remo dealing with opponents who don’t really tax his new abilities. 

The stakes and the opposition don’t match the power set the book just spent pages installing. 

Warren Murphy (l) & Richard Sapir (r)

I read this alongside a later Murphy novella that retells the origin story from Chiun’s perspective. 

That satirical aspect that was still developing in the novel is fully evident here and very enjoyable. 

Even with the mismatched plot elements and the anticlimactic ending, I am left feeling optimistic about what comes later.

"The Killer Is Created" (Danish)

"Relentlessly Yours" (French)

"The Destroyer Arrives" (Italian)

"Create: The Slayer" (Finnish)