GRANDMASTER by Warren Murphy and Molly Cochran

Grandmaster was published in 1984. It won an Edgar Award for best paperback original in 1985, and it is the first, by my count, of seven novels co-written and published as by Warren Murphy and Molly Cochran. It is both familiar and fresh to readers of Mr. Murphy’s long running series, The Destroyer. The familiarity is its Eastern mysticism, and the fresh is its less satirical and more hard-bitten tone.

Justin Gilead is nearly an orphan. His mother died before he was three, and his father—

“a novelist known worldwide by the single name Leviathan, which graced a stream of flashy if embarrassingly illiterate best-sellers”

—promptly unloaded the child to a succession of aunts, uncles, and anyone else who would look after him. An uncle encouraged Justin to play chess, which he did, and very well, but he is more than just a chess prodigy. He is mystical; the reincarnated Patanjali of Rashimpur; The Wearer of the Blue Hat. The fantasy element is remarkably complicated, in a good way, and important to the novel. It is played out in a straight forward cold war espionage with a slash of good an evil.              

Grandmaster, when it was released, was a wholly original novel, and still is. It is a mixture of the heroic and cold war machinations. It is larger than life, but reasonable with its grandiosity; Justin Gilead is greater than a simple man, but less than an outright hero. He has failed his destiny and is motivated by revenge. The espionage element is the playground for the story, and while a cold war novel, its focus, and what makes it work, is the thematic good versus evil. The good isn’t the United States, and the evil isn’t the Soviet Union. It is much more personal, and much more interesting for it.

Wonderfully (because it made me laugh), Justin Gilead’s father—at least in name—resembles the bestselling author Trevanian. A man Warren Murphy likely knew since he wrote the screenplay for Clint Eastwood’s adaptation of Trevanian’s novel The Eiger Sanction. And Mr. Murphy’s assessment is less than fawning—see the quote above.

Purchase a copy of Grandmaster at Amazon.

Warren Murphy, R. I. P.

It was announced Saturday, September 5, that author Warren Murphy died. Mr. Murphy was a talented novelist who brought hours and hours of enjoyment to me through his work. He co-created the outlandishly successful The Destroyer series, the brilliant Trace novels, and a bunch of straight suspense thrillers in the 1980s and 1990s. I am particularly fond of his suspense novels. The best was probably The Grandmaster (1984), which won the Edgar Award for Best Paperback Original.

A handful of years ago I read several of Mr. Murphy’s suspense novels, and even wrote a few reviews. In his memory, and since there is nothing else I can do, I am going back in time to the reviews I wrote for four of his novels (click the titles and you will be taken to the review).

The Red Moon

Ceiling of Hell

The Scorpion’s Dance

Honor Among Thieves

I just may go back to his work as well; maybe read a few of his Trace novels, and revisit Grandmaster.

THE RED MOON by Warren Murphy

Warren Murphy is best known for his The Destroyer series (he co-created it with the late Richard Sapir), but his body of work is impressively diverse.  He has authored everything from horror to mystery to suspense to fantasy.  He won two Edgar Awards and two Shamus Awards in the 1980s and, while he has been silent for nearly two decades, he is a giant in the field (at least on my bookshelf).

I pretty much enjoy all of his work, but I am particularly fond of his suspense novels.  I recently read his 1982 novel The Red Moon and it is as exciting, vibrant and interesting today as it must have been when it was published more than thirty years ago.  And the book itself seemingly has an interesting history—a history I am only guessing at.  It appears to have been written as a novelization for a film, which was never released.  The copyright holders are Davis/Panzer Productions (a production company that produced the “Highlander” television series) and Stan Corwin Productions.

While the genesis for the novel is somewhat shadowy, the novel is wonderfully shadowy.  It chronicles the story of one Christopher Caldwell—a former CIA agent who dropped off the radar when his wife and child were murdered in a car bombing.  He is reluctantly pulled back into the clandestine world of murder and betrayal when his father-in-law is found dead in what is ruled a fishing accident.  The canvas of the story is broad and it includes a World War 2 art theft, oil, Iran—it was published a mere three years after the Shah was deposed—greed, secrets and betrayal.

The Red Moon was a paperback original published by Fawcett Gold Medal and it is very much a novel of its time.  The plot is straight out of the 1980s: Nazi hunters, big oil, Mideast plotting, sinister corporations and corrupt politicians.  The style is different from many of Warren Murphy’s suspense novels—there is less humor, although he does have some fun with two Israeli Mossad agents who tend to speak with British accents, and it reads something like a contemporary Robert Ludlum novel, less the exclamation marks!

While The Red Moon is different than some of Mr Murphy’s work it is no less entertaining.  It is sharply plotted; the story unwinds with enough surprises to keep the reader wondering.  The bad guys are introduced as the story moves forward, and a few are genuinely surprising.  The prose is simple and effective and the dialogue is used expertly to explain the characters motives and quicken the pace from crisis to crisis.

The Red Moon is an entertaining suspense novel.  It is large and complicated (376 pages in mass market), but it reads better and more swiftly than many of the genres’ novels.  And while its style is just a shade different than most of Mr Murphy’s suspense novels it is also one of his better, which is a big statement since much of his work is pretty awesome.  

This review originally appeared on the now defunct blog Dark City Underground July 13, 2010 in slightly different form.  I will be moving a few other reviews from DCU to Gravetapping over the next several weeks.

HONOR AMONG THEIVES by Warren Murphy

Warren Murphy is a master of the quick, witty, and action-filled novel. He co-created the bestselling The Destroyer series, and in the 1980s and 90s wrote several bigger novels including his 1992 novel, Honor Among Thieves.

Lieutenant Rostov is a Moscow narcotics cop; the Communist government has barely settled into dust when organized crime begins to make a play for the drug market. The problem, no one believes there is a mafia working the system—no one except Rostov and his team.

Rostov requests help from the American government. He needs someone with American mafia experience to consult and, more importantly, prove that organized crime is expanding into the former Soviet Union. What he gets is a former mafia wise guy turned state’s witness named Kamen who is more than a little antsy to get back in the game.

Honor Among Thieves is a 1990s thriller from beginning to end. It involves three of my favorite subjects—in novel form of course—the Soviet Union, drugs (specifically cocaine) and the mafia. The prose is fluid and easy, there is a serious amount of dialogue, and the action is quick and believable.

The characters are the expected—from Mr. Murphy at any rate—in that they are well-rounded, in the manner of a thriller, with an abundance of wit, humor and, at times, over-the-top interpersonal relationships. There are several interconnecting story lines that tie together rather nicely and more than enough intrigue to keep the pages interesting.

The most unique aspect of the novel—at least looking back with 20-20 vision—is that the Russian mafia was still in shadow and needed to be fully revealed and proven. A naive thought (the culture, rather than the author) with the impressive growth that the Russian crime syndicates have made since the fall of Soviet communism, both domestically and internationally.

Honor Among Thieves is an entertaining blast from the past. It is a fun read that reminded me of my comfortable and warm youth. It has lost a few steps since it was published, but it is very much worth keeping an eye open for in your favorite used bookshop or thrift store. But, heck, all of Murphy's novels are worth a look.

SCORPION'S DANCE by Warren Murphy

The past several months I have been re-discovering the work of Warren Murphy. I’ve read a handful of his novels, mostly thrillers from the 1980s, and I have been impressed. Impressed enough to have at least one of his novels in my to-be-read pile all the time. The current resident is the thriller Honor Among Thieves.

The title I just finished is Scorpion’s Dance. A novel that I enjoyed, but not for the reasons I thought I would enjoy it—the plot meandered a little, there wasn’t much action, but there was the trademark humor, and the characters where damn fun.

The United States and Russia form an elite joint-task force to counter an active terrorist organization called Tenterallah that is led by the illusive Abu Beka. As the novel opens Tenterallah is executing a successful ambush at Da Vinci Airport in Rome; seven passengers are killed and another 24 are injured.

The surviving terrorists are arrested, but quickly escape with the help of an outside party. At least that is how it seems until the escaped men are found dead hanging—in the hollowed husks of pigs—from a statue of the Madonna in the plaza in a small Italian village. The dead men have two notes attached that read:

“To the killers of babies and women: your turn in the pigskin is coming.”

and

“You Tenterallah butchers have run out of time. Abu Beka, you are next.”

The terrorists quickly become the victims of their own terror and the operation is controlled from the business offices of Mark Donovan. Mark is a wealthy businessman who, along with a Russian KGB officer named Petrov, plans to wipe Tenterallah off the map in a small and very well-funded operation. Unfortunately the pair has an unwitting mole on the fringe of their group and as they make the war personal for Abu Beka, Mr Beka brings the terror to their doorstep.

Scorpion’s Dance didn’t focus on the grass roots operation of Donovan and Petrov, but rather it was presented as a wide-angle perspective. Mr Murphy created a world for the two protagonists that included family, friends, lovers, and social events. It also included the occasional foray into the dark world of spies and law enforcement, but those scenes were rationed and used as climax pieces to unsettle and then pace the story; quite effectively too.

This quality made it very different from the usual thriller fare of the 1980s—it was published in 1990—when the Tom Clancy style thriller was king and it was a similar story, but Murphy cast his own unique storytelling on the entire operation. There was humor—the first few chapters in particular Murphy cast a humorous and telling light on journalism. When there is no news, they interview each other. And then do it again. The prose was smooth and very readable. The characters were witty and charming, and the bad guys were bad.

Scorpion’s Dance is an entertaining novel. It showcases Mr Murphy’s vast talent, and while it is not his best work, it is worth reading simply because it entertains in a smooth and easy style. It runs nearly 500 pages, but it doesn’t drag or bog and when it ended I was sorry to see it go.

THE CEILING OF HELL by Warren Murphy

I’m a sucker for three things. The first is a cleverly plotted 1980s thriller. The second is a private eye novel. The third is any story that features shrewdly evil Nazis. It’s not often to find all three packaged neatly together in one story, but that’s exactly what Warren Murphy did with his 1984 Shamus-winning novel The Ceiling of Hell.

Steve Hooks is a former Secret Service agent and presidential bodyguard. He was wounded in the service and his wife was put in a coma. He left the service to start his own private security agency and while it looked good on paper his client list is shockingly short, so when a former co-worker—Robert Pardin—refers a German academic to Hooks as a bodyguard he can’t turn it down. The German’s name is Professor Edward Kohl and he makes his living hashing up bad memories about the Third Reich. And there are more than a few groups that would like to silence his voice.

The job doesn’t go as planned. Professor Kohl is killed in his hotel room and Hooks is knocked cold. Before Kohl dies he asks Hooks to help him find a German girl who reportedly immigrated to the United States at the end of the war. The professor doesn’t have anything except her name: Anna Mueller. Hooks doesn’t think much of it until Pardin contacts him and asks him to—unofficially—go to Germany to give condolences to Kohl’s family and investigate the German side of professor’s murder.

It doesn’t take long for Hooks to realize he’s into something much larger than he first thought. He is kidnapped, intimidated and basically wants the hell out. Unfortunately the trouble follows him back home and what he discovers is more than a little unsettling. In fact, it very well might be the beginning of the Fourth Reich in the United States.

The Ceiling of Hell is an interesting mix. It is a private eye novel, but it isn’t the standard fare. The protagonist doesn’t fit the hardboiled mold and the story line is a mixture of a sleek thriller, an inventive adventure tale, and a straight-up mystery. There is plenty of action, and more than a few twists.

The protagonist is likable and more than capable. The prose is swift and clean. The plot is perfectly played. And just about everything else about the story is clean, smooth and entertaining. The real story is the mixture of genre—even related genre—into the novel. It gives The Ceiling of Hell a certain sparkle and originality that it otherwise wouldn’t have. It takes the novel from the entertainingly escapist fare to the next level. It showcases Mr. Murphy’s talent and skill as well as his inventive and subtle humor.

The Ceiling of Hell is a real treat. It is been out-of-print for twenty or more years, but it is very much worth scouring a few used bookshops to find. It was originally printed in 1984 by Fawcett Gold Medal.

The New Destroyer

Good news on The Destroyer front. I found the Amazon listng for the new improved version of the old series. They have a new publisher--from Gold Eagle to TOR--and Warren Murphy is back in charge of what happens, when it happens and how it happens.

There have been rumbles among the fans about the last several (maybe a dozen or so) titles--apperantly they took Remo places he shouldn't have been--and Murphy plans to fix that. How? Pretending those particular novels never happened.

Guardian Angel is the first title in The New Destroyer, and is expected to hit bookstores May 1. TOR also plans to release some of the better of the older titles in trade paperback, three to a book.

I haven't read a Destroyer title since I was a teenager. I can even remember the where and the when. Early Nineties on the shore of a beautiful lake in the Uinta Mountains. Damn if I can remember the title, or even what it was about, other than the expected Remo ass-kickings and the always present sly humor. Great trip. Great book? Maybe. Just can't quite remember.

Hmmm. Time to try another? Or maybe just dust of the old Fred Ward Remo Williams VHS? Did I just admit I liked the movie? Damn. Sorry.