Reviews

Death Therapy by Richard Sapir, Warren Murphy

posies23's review

4.0

By the time you hit the 6th book of this series, published in 1972, you pretty much know what to expect: a good dose of "tough guy" action, some very, very un-PC characters and situations, and a lot of satire on politics and social issues. DEATH THERAPY sees Remo struggling against an antagonist that seeks to auction off the United States government to the highest bidder, while trying to figure out how they are going to make it happen.

Yes, it's dated, and yes, there's sections that might make a modern reader cringe a bit, but these novels are great fun, and surprisingly strong satire.

gengelcox's review

adventurous fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No

1.5

The sixth installment of the Destroyer series improves somewhat over the last, but not by much. Like the last, one of Remo’s antagonists in this book is a woman whose sexual attraction is superhuman; in this case, she uses it to lure in government employees who she then hypnotizes to await her call as a sleeper agent a la The Manchurian Candidate. The “mystery” here, however, is whom she works for. Of course, these pulp adventure novels are not really mysteries, so it doesn’t take long to discover who the mastermind is.

 

What’s interesting about this book, written in the early 70s, is its depiction of a black man who has worked hard for his education, gained a PhD, and become one of the US’s top atomic scientists. But he has a breakdown after a traffic stop when he realizes that none of that matters to your average cop: to them, he’s just the color of his skin. Fifty years later, and it’s still a goddamn thing. Given that the readers of this series at the time were likely white conservative men, I applaud Murphy and Sapir for including this.

The other nice bit here is the ending where Remo confronts the US president to determine if he’s been made a sleeper agent. The series hinges on the idea that Remo’s organization is outside the US government, although its mission is to protect the constitution. This ending is a perfect illustration of what the authors mean by that, showing that even though the president knows about CURE, he’s not above it. Which, of course, means that the three at the top of CURE are beholden only to the mission. Who watches these watchmen? I suspect somewhere in this series, Murphy and Sapir will explore that question.