Bloody Tourists

Finally, the series seems to be getting better. Nevertheless, there still some way to go. In this installment, Greg Grom, a not-so-bright yet somewhat lucky, head of a small US protectorate Caribbean island, has stumbled across an ancient secret powder that can be used to enslave men and women. While originally using it for his own pleasure, with the aid of a conniving bikini model-turned-tourism minister, they seek independence and later some unhatched and undescribed scheme for making lots of money. Alas, nothing so James Bondian, as bringing together the world's top master criminals and auctioning it off to higher bidder. Unfortunately, Grom has used up much of the original source of his powder in his infantile exploits and tries to have an exact replacement synthesized. As he travels the US on his publicity campaign for independence of his island, he is dosing people on the side to test each of the new batches of his enslavement compound. Alas, they all seem to have the side effect of turning the poor victims into murderous maniacs. And this is where Remo and Chiun step in. What stands out in this episode, Remo begins to show a glimmer of deductive intelligence. And what is a big disappointment is that Harold Smith does not. Clearly, the author wanted to show, after all these years, Remo is beginning to develop intellectually. However, what the author does best is the too short segments showing Chiun trying to determine what his place and role should be as Master Emeritus. Bloody Tourists zooms along with all the action and zing you would expect of a Destroyer, as well as some, though not enough, cultural sarcasm. However, the big disappointment is the ending, which comes together all too fast, and leaves more threads hanging than an old tapestry. Instead of the usual clean wrap-up with maybe a few menaces left for the future, this book ends well short of that.

The only thing I want to say is that this is Tim Sonheil's first book in the Destroyer series and it's a good start for him. If this book is any indication then the series is back on track.Here's a side peice of info: the last two books (132 and 133) I believe were orignally written but not published when the series first came out years ago. Then they were rewritten to fill the gap between Mullany and Sonheil.Recommened authors/series: Jim Butcher (Dresden Files), George R. R. Martin (A Song of Ice and Fire), and Steven Brust(Vlad Taltos)