Next of Kin

The narrative prologue tells island legends about Devil’s Mountain, the old castle and the feared Dutchman; these foreword claims are part of the novel, not verified Caribbean history. Chapter 1 identifies the Dutchman as Jeremiah Purcell. As a child, Jeremiah’s thoughts accompany a pig’s death and a fire in which his parents catch fire and drown. His later episodes include a boy running away on all fours after Jeremiah thinks “Rabbit,” and a trainful of passengers experiencing an apparent snow hallucination. A strange Master takes him away and trains him. As an adult, Jeremiah controls the Soubise shipyard and castle, where the story links his training to Nuihc.

On Sint Maarten, Remo and Chiun are on vacation when CURE director Harold W. Smith secretly arrives. Smith says a recovered container held more than a hundred unidentified bodies and suspects Remo; Chiun compares the killing style and rules Remo out. A metal-banded gate card and a message reading “I live again” lead them toward a Sinanju-trained killer. Remo becomes involved with Fabienne de la Soubise, whose father’s estate was left to Jeremiah. Fabienne reports that Sanchez, the Dutchman’s mute servant, tried to strangle her; Sanchez later attacks Remo in a cave and dies there. Jeremiah abducts and kills unhoused men at the shipyard and stores bodies in refrigerated containers.

He mistakenly catches Lordon cook Alberto Vittorelli among a group, who is electrocuted at the fence and thrown into the sea; Vittorelli survives and, after Dr. Caswell operates, recalls a shipyard and a blond man with blue eyes. Battiato identifies the yard as Soubise, and Smith names the Dutchman. Jeremiah’s destructive mental images produce dangerous effects in the narrative, though no mechanism is explained. The counts remain inconsistent: Jeremiah counts ten bodies including Vittorelli, Sanchez adds the biker’s body, and Remo and Chiun later find nine, while Smith’s first report concerns more than a hundred unidentified men in a recovered container. Chiun confronts Jeremiah, and Remo joins them.

Remo’s strike tears Jeremiah’s face and he falls; he is still alive and weeping after Sidonie’s gasoline-furnace explosion collapses the castle. His body then disappears, and Remo later finds him wounded in a dinghy. Jeremiah saves Remo from a shark, then refuses Remo’s hand and swims away as sharks close in. The text never confirms whether he died. Smith acknowledges Jeremiah as the shipyard killer and orders Remo to eliminate Fabienne and Sidonie as witnesses; Remo refuses. Sidonie gives police a cover account, while Fabienne expects to reclaim and run the shipyard. Four dead sharks later wash ashore, sustaining the possibility that Jeremiah survived. Remo and Chiun leave the island.