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Mugger Blood — Hachette UK ebook edition
Hachette UK ebook edition

The DestroyerBook 301977

Mugger Blood

When an elderly German immigrant is tortured and killed in the Bronx, Remo investigates what her death has to do with an unknown device left behind by her late husband. As several foreign intelligence services converge on the neighborhood, Remo also confronts a local gang and begins to question his role as an enforcer.

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Mrs. Mueller’s torture murder draws competing intelligence services to her dead husband Gerd’s stolen machine. Remo and Chiun follow the Saxon Lords to their fence, Reverend Wadson, while Remo debates responsibility with captive gang member Tyrone. Wadson’s corrupt relocation experiment also leaves elderly volunteers to a murderous gang attack. The machine proves an outdated induction lie detector. Speskaya instead wants Remo and Chiun as Soviet weapons; his agent Ingrid coerces Wadson with remote rings, then admits mutilating him. Remo defeats her ring and redirects her shot into her own head. At their meeting he rejects recruitment and kills Spesk. Pickens admits Mrs. Mueller’s killing, and Remo tortures him to death.

Pleskoff, whom Remo earlier pushed to act, now leads an indiscriminate gang shooting after separately killing five innocent men. Remo spares Tyrone, but Chiun crushes his fingers after recovering a stolen diamond. Remo withholds the weapons’ identities from Smith.

Sources for this summary

Characters & places

Spoilers

Full articles

Characters 33

Places 38

Organizations 18

Groups 7

Lore 3

Chapter summaries14 chapters · spoilers

  1. Chapter 1

    Mrs. Gerd Mueller dies under torture while recalling her husband and neighborhood. A news report misrepresents a detective’s defensive shooting through staged coverage of Wadson’s protest. Her daughter attends Mrs. Mueller’s burial; wreckers demolish the apartment building under armed federal escort.

  2. Chapter 2

    Remo completes an assignment to capture a South Korean colonel suspected of buying influence in the United States. He returns to Chiun and Smith at a yacht in San Francisco Bay. Smith offers Chiun increased tribute to train new operatives and offers Remo retirement; both decline the terms. Smith asks Remo to investigate Mueller’s killing and a device her husband brought from Germany.

  3. Chapter 3

    Speskaya enters as Anthony Spesk with Nathan, who kills a hitchhiker and a motel clerk. Drinking CIA operative Joe divulges the failed device search. At the excavation Nathan shoots at Chiun and Remo; Remo kills him. Spesk falsely thanks Remo as though Nathan were his attacker.

  4. Chapter 4

    Remo detects Spesk’s false cover and disables his knee, without yet knowing he is Speskaya. A resident names the Saxon Lords. At Fort Mohican, Pleskoff calls Gerd Mueller’s stabbing-induced death a heart attack despite the homicide card; Remo forces him outside to investigate.

  5. Chapter 5

    Pleskoff kills two men threatening Delphinia and Peaches despite Remo’s intention to arrest them. Remo kills the gang leader later named Idi Amin and learns he and Big-Big Pickens killed Mrs. Mueller. A rage strike breaks Remo’s hand; Chiun sets it. Remo keeps Tyrone alive while debating responsibility, and hears Wadson is the gang fence. Pleskoff separately kills five innocent professionals; Smith warns of Spesk’s two weapons.

  6. Chapter 6

    Wadson’s federal relocation experiment spends heavily on consultants and abandons elderly volunteers in the Bronx. Gangs sever Hotchkiss’s ring finger and burn her alive; police refuse an emergency caller. At a Waldorf workshop Wadson seeks a third grant, assaults his assistant and falls for Ingrid’s reporter cover. She secures a remote-controlled ring to his genitals and takes him away.

  7. Chapter 7

    Ingrid brings Wadson to Speskaya, who recruits him to find Remo, Chiun, and the Mueller device. Wadson admits the Saxon Lords gave him an unknown ticking device. East German agent Breslau arrives; Speskaya accuses him of withholding the East German search, then kills him with the new neck ring after capturing him.

  8. Chapter 8

    Remo takes Tyrone to Malcolm-King-Lumumba School and questions guidance counselor Dr. Shockley and teacher Miss Feldman about the school’s instruction and promotion practices. The chapter presents the school’s policies through sharp satire and racialized language. Remo breaks Shockley’s steel screen and gun, then retrieves Tyrone from class.

  9. Chapter 9

    Jamie Rickets, also known by several aliases, learns that Tyrone stayed at the Plaza and alerts the Saxon Lords. The gang relays the news through a chain of invented ranks to its new Leader for Life, who phones Wadson.

  10. Chapter 10

    The Saxon Lords enter Chiun’s Plaza suite while Remo and Tyrone are returning. Remo reflects on the difference between New York City and the rest of the country; the narrative mentions an unnamed former mayor that city politicians might promote for U.S. President.

  11. Chapter 11

    Chiun has killed the successor gang leader and subdued three followers. At Wadson’s apartment, Remo receives the old machine; Tyrone briefly steals its captor’s ring control. Smith identifies the delivered machine as an obsolete induction lie detector and insists Remo investigate Spesk. Remo and Chiun debate personal morality and vengeance.

  12. Chapter 12

    Remo helps Ingrid leave Wadson’s apartment while she falsely claims to have witnessed his murder. Spesk claims the killing in a call, offers employment and sets a meeting. Remo recognizes Spesk’s voice as the man whose knee he injured. Ingrid warns Spesk of Remo’s plan; Pickens steals a Buick and returns toward the Bronx.

  13. Chapter 13

    During sex Ingrid places the ring on Remo and demands he join Spesk. She admits mutilating Wadson; Remo explains that the running-killer story could not fit Spesk’s injured knee. Muscle control breaks the ring. Remo throws half of it at her pistol, redirecting her shot through her chin and brain. Tyrone must accompany Remo to identify Pickens.

  14. Chapter 14

    Remo and Chiun reject recruitment and confirm they are Spesk’s desired weapons. Remo vaults the beams and strangles Spesk with a knotted lamp. Tyrone joins a gang ambush, then identifies Pickens, who admits Mueller’s killing; Remo tortures and kills him with his own icepick. Pleskoff’s plainclothes officers indiscriminately shoot the gang. Remo spares Tyrone, but Chiun later crushes his finger bones after recovering a stolen diamond ring. Remo refuses to tell Smith the weapons’ identities.

Other mentions55 names & references

Editions & covers

Explore cover history
Mugger Blood — Hachette UK ebook cover
Hachette UKEbookISBN 9780751558265
Mugger Blood — Destroyer Books publisher cover
Destroyer BooksEdition unassignedWarren Murphy and Richard Sapir

References & notes

Sources 26 references
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  • witness:00000087:ch11:p0081
  • witness:00000087:ch11:p0135
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  • witness:00000087:ch13:p0058
  • witness:00000087:ch14:p0036
  • witness:00000087:ch14:p0052
  • witness:00000087:ch14:p0096
  • witness:00000087:ch14:p0119
  • witness:00000087:ch14:p0123
  • witness:00000087:ch14:p0127
  • witness:00000087:ch14:p0168
  • witness:00000087:ch14:p0179
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.

Mugger Blood:

Publisher's description: Remo intervenes after a brutal New York gang attacks an elderly woman, taking on the group alongside Chiun.

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 · Book 29 · Book 31

Presidential clues

Chronological U.S. presidential context: Jimmy Carter* (inferred from surrounding books; historical identity unconfirmed). No local incumbent assessment is available.

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.

This adds contextual placement only. Do not create a president appearance, typed source-role record, or named local candidate from the absence of a local incumbent assessment.

* Inferred from the surrounding books.

The unnamed South Korean President

South Korea’s president

  • Smith says the colonel is close to South Korea’s President.
  • No name, term, date, or other identifying detail appears.

none for an individual identity

The narrative gives only a generic national office and no story date or personal clues.

An unnamed former U.S. Vice President

“the last one” / former vice president

  • The reference is unnamed and occurs in Remo’s imagined discussion of bribery.
  • The phrase “White House already full of it” is part of the same satire.
  • Former vice president has grease-slicked hair, a ratlike grin, travels internationally and should, in Remo’s judgment, be jailed. These are textual allusions; the reader supplies no historical name.

none for a specific person

No name or precise date is given; the source’s satirical context does not identify the officeholder.

Idi Amin Dada

Field Marshal Doctor Idi Amin Dada, President for Life

  • The passage names Idi Amin Dada and calls him President for Life.
  • The passage does not supply an exact date or connect him to the novel’s U.S. political offices.

high for the source’s named mention; no U.S. incumbent identity follows

This observation is not a candidate identity for the unnamed U.S. political references.

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Phrases & sayings in this book

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