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Hachette UK
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The Destroyer#32Killer ChromosomesThe DestroyerBook 321978
Killer Chromosomes
- Writer
- Warren Murphy, Richard Sapir
When geneticist Dr. Sheila Feinberg’s laboratory demonstration goes wrong, a string of animal-like killings draws Remo and Chiun to Boston. As they investigate the chromosome experiment, the danger spreads through a growing group of transformed people, and Remo’s own injuries make it harder for him to rely on the training that has always kept him alive.
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Dr. Sheila Feinberg drinks experimental chromosome material at a protest, transforms into a powerful predator, and develops a saliva-based method that turns others into a new species. After killings spread through Boston, CURE sends Remo and Chiun to stop her. Remo is severely injured in a fight with Feinberg; the transformed FBI assistant director James Hallahan leads a pack that kills landlady Beatrice Tumulty and attacks Remo and Chiun. Chiun kills Hallahan and helps Remo recover at Folcroft, but Feinberg infiltrates the sanitarium as therapist Dr. Jacqueline Bell and abducts Remo. She takes him to the Dominican Republic to serve as a breeder. Remo’s training initially fades, but he regains his senses through Sinanju breathing practice and eventually defeats Feinberg in a sugar-cane field.
She dies impaled on a cut stalk. Although she says she is pregnant, Remo and Chiun conclude she was reverting to her original form and her vomiting was not morning sickness; they expect the remaining Boston pack to revert as well. Remo declines to return to hunt them.
Characters & places
SpoilersFull articles
- ChiunCharacter
- Conn MacClearyCharacter
- CUREOrganization
- Folcroft SanatoriumPlace
- Harold W. SmithCharacter
- House of SinanjuGroup
- Miss PurvishCharacter
- Remo WilliamsCharacter
- SinanjuPlace
- Sinanju (martial tradition)Lore
Characters 38
- Alderman Fitzpatrick
- Beatrice Mary-Ellen Tumulty
- Betsy Ogden
- Captain Bill Majors
- Chiun
- Conn MacCleary
- Dr. Jacqueline “Jacki” Bell
- Dr. Sheila Feinberg
- Durwood Dawkins
- Ethel
- Gilford school principal
- Hak Lo
- Hallahan unnamed father
- Harold W. Smith
- Houk Hubbley
- John Hallahan
- Marjorie Billingham
- Mary Ellen
- Miss Purvish
- Mrs. Flaherty
- Mrs. Grogan
- Mrs. Harry Walters
- Pam Westcott
- Remo Williams
- Ruth Feinberg
- Salvatore “The Gas” Gasciano
- Sol Feinberg
- Tony Fats
- Unidentified Brookline woman transformed by Feinberg
- Unidentified Marjorie Billingham husband
- Unidentified old woman with bread
- Unidentified television announcer
- Unidentified Three Musketeers bartender
- Unidentified transformed woman killed by police
- Unidentified weekly CURE tipster
- Unnamed former President who selected Smith to lead CURE
- Unnamed infant whose eye flesh Sheila takes
- Unnamed President of the United States
Places 29
- Boston
- Boston Biological
- Boston North End
- Boston South End
- Bridgeport
- Colony Days Inn
- Copley Plaza
- Copley Square
- Dominican farmhouse
- Dominican Republic
- Duxbury
- Eatout Diner
- Folcroft boat docks
- Folcroft Sanatorium
- Haverhill, Massachusetts
- Jamaica Plains
- Jamaicaway
- Logan Airport
- Long Island Sound
- Massachusetts Turnpike
- Portland
- Rye, New York
- Santo Domingo
- Sinanju
- Three Musketeers
- Trinity Church
- Weehawken, New Jersey
- Westchester Country Airport
- White House
Organizations 16
- agriculture department
- Boston College
- Boston Graduate School of Biological Sciences
- Central Intelligence Agency
- Coast Guard
- CURE
- Customs Bureau
- Federal Bureau of Investigation
- Gilford Country Day School
- Immigration Service
- National Foundation for Scientific Research
- National Guard
- Notre Dame University
- Special Forces
- St. Aloysius Roman Catholic Church
- United States Secret Service
Groups 7
Lore 4
Chapter summaries
Chapter 1
A public protest disrupts Feinberg’s demonstration; she drinks experimental material, collapses, then transforms and kills Ethel Walters and others.
Chapter 2
Remo handles Hubbley’s initial assault, then Chiun disables the armed logger; they travel from Oregon to Boston where Smith briefs them on Sheila’s threat.
Chapter 3
Feinberg kills Captain Majors and develops a method using infant flesh and saliva to transform an adult woman and alter her own appearance.
Chapter 4
Remo and Chiun infiltrate Boston Biological, steal a centrifuge, and identify Feinberg in disguise; Remo is badly wounded in their fight.
Chapter 5
Smith and the President argue about CURE and the Boston emergency; Westcott transforms Hallahan and recruits him into Feinberg’s pack.
Chapter 6
Tumulty reports the wounded Remo’s location to Gasciano and Hallahan; the pack kills her, while Feinberg confirms she wants Remo as a breeder.
Chapter 7
The pack attacks Remo and Chiun at Tumulty’s attic; Chiun’s traps and the fire allow them to escape, and he kills Hallahan on the roof.
Chapter 8
Chiun reaches Smith through a telephone operator chain; Smith learns the Boston bodies and Hallahan’s death and arranges to bring Remo to Folcroft.
Chapter 9
Feinberg’s pack tries to trace Remo and Chiun after they leave the motel, but the transferred limousine route is not yet known.
Chapter 10
Remo wakes at Folcroft and learns the killings continue; Smith prepares a newspaper ad to bait Feinberg into approaching Folcroft.
Chapter 11
Feinberg impersonates Dr. Jacki Bell to enter Folcroft, while Chiun tells Smith Remo’s abilities may be regressing; she abducts Remo during an attack at the sanitarium.
Chapter 12
Sheila cages Remo and transfers from Silverton to speedboat for Bridgeport. Smith mobilizes a search; the incumbent discusses disclosure risk and accepts Smith’s implied lethal contingency. The empty cruiser is found.
Chapter 13
Feinberg holds Remo at a farmhouse outside Santo Domingo for reproduction; Remo’s training fades before he returns to Sinanju breathing and balance practice.
Chapter 14
An unwitting paid tipster reports Dawkins’s flight story. Smith and Chiun obtain the route after Chiun injures the pilot. Sheila interprets vomiting as pregnancy, an account later overturned.
Chapter 15
Still below full fighting fitness, Remo uses fire fear and kicks Sheila onto a cane spike. She dies; he determines she was not pregnant. Remo and Chiun explain mutation reversal and predict the Boston survivors will revert, then depart without a shown cleanup.
Other mentions
- “Tiger people”
- American Psychoanalytical Journal
- Bela Lugosi
- Boston Globe
- Boston Times
- Cadillac
- Chiun love manuscript
- Chromosomal transformation
- Chromosomes and genes
- Crime and Punishment
- CURE computer system
- Curtained iron cage
- Dear Abby
- Dostoyevsky
- Dr. Jonas Salk
- Feinberg laboratory experiment
- Feinberg’s transformation solution
- Frankenstein syndrome
- Homelite
- Insulating gel
- J. Edgar Hoover
- Laboratory centrifuge
- Mia Farrow
- Napoleon
- New York Times
- Polaroid
- Rosemary’s Baby
- Rotating CURE telephone code
- Silverton cabin cruiser
- Small private jet
- Titanic
- Twinkies
- Unidentified Boston Biological lab assistant
- Unidentified Folcroft gate guard
- Unidentified Folcroft Special Services clerk
- William Shakespeare
- Yellow Toyota
Editions & covers
Explore cover historyReferences & notes
Sources 24 references
- stopyourekillingme.com/D_Authors/Destroyer.html
- www.fantasticfiction.com/series/destroyer
- www.warrenmurphy.com/index.php?page=books
- sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/murphy_warren
- www.45cat.com/book/title/created-the-destroyer
- api.publicrecords.copyright.gov/search_service_external/simple_search_dsl?query=TX0000015242
- www.hachette.co.uk/titles/warren-murphy-5/killer-chromosomes/9780751558289
- spyguysandgals.com/sgShowChar.aspx?id=472
witness:00000093:ch01:p0037witness:00000093:ch01:p0083witness:00000093:ch02:p0178witness:00000093:ch04:p0181witness:00000093:ch06:p0088witness:00000093:ch01:p0065witness:00000093:ch03:p0058witness:00000093:ch05:p0162witness:00000093:ch07:p0052witness:00000093:ch11:p0196witness:00000093:ch13:p0023witness:00000093:ch13:p0113witness:00000093:ch14:p0039witness:00000093:ch15:p0060witness:00000093:ch15:p0101witness:00000093:ch15:p0103
Edition and source notes
Names are the bibliography’s title-level “written by” attribution key, not a verified edition byline. credited_authors is null because no first-edition cover/title page was checked. A creator name in the general franchise metadata must not be treated as proof of sole drafting.
registration-declared first publication: 1978-03-15. CPRS record field is the registrant/depositor-reported first-publication date, not independent retail/on-sale verification; no print copy inspected. Source
Killer Chromosomes:
Publisher's description: A scientist’s self-experiment turns her into a predatory hybrid, and her pursuit of Remo leads to further killings.
Story timeframe
Coarse estimate from the assumed incumbent’s historical presidency. The term range is context, not a claim that the plot spans the term or that a particular event occurs at either endpoint.
Historical term dates: Source 1
Presidential clues
Current U.S. President: Jimmy Carter* (inferred from surrounding books; historical identity unconfirmed).
Jimmy Carter*
conditional editorial continuity inference; historical identity unconfirmed
* Inferred from surrounding books; it does not create a local presidential appearance.
Assumes the main narratives within this bracketing series interval follow chronological presidential continuity; the selected sources do not establish that assumption.
Inferred from the matching incumbent hypotheses in surrounding retained books; this book does not identify the historical President.
* Inferred from the surrounding books.
The unnamed Southern President
the President / Mr. President
- Speaks with a deeply Southern voice and addresses Smith about federal agencies and CURE.
- Says the situation is a national emergency and that the creatures could threaten the whole world.
- No personal name, party, inauguration, term date, or year is supplied.
- Says he previously saw Remo and Chiun in action, ch05:p0055.
- Wishes Smith to go with God, ch05:p0057; this does not name an officeholder.
- Plans to meet Smith after crisis, ch12:p0059.
- Earlier ch04:p0023 mention occurs in Chiun speculative notion of killing the President; it is not a performed coup.
none for a specific real-world identity
Only an office and narrative-level characterization are given; no real-world identification is warranted.
The young President who selected Smith
the young President who chose Smith
- The passage says this young President chose Smith to lead the secret organization.
- The chapter distinguishes this founder from the current President speaking to Smith.
- No name or date is given.
high for distinct narrative role; none for specific identity
The source does not name him, and the allusion cannot be resolved from the text alone.
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