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Sweet Dreams — Hachette UK ebook edition
Hachette UK ebook edition

The DestroyerBook 251976

Sweet Dreams

An inventor demonstrates a device that projects fantasies onto a television screen. As a St. Louis crime boss seeks to acquire it, Remo and Chiun are drawn into a protection assignment while Remo presses Smith for a permanent home.

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Dr. Wooley’s Dreamocizer attracts both Don Salvatore Massello and a television network. After Wooley makes a half-million-dollar deal with Massello, network-hired assassin T.B. Donleavy kills Wooley and Lee Woodward. Remo traces the network plot through Patti Shea; Remo forces Donleavy and Patti together around Donleavy’s live grenade, killing them; a second explosive blast injures Remo. On Massello’s yacht, Arthur Grassione kills Massello and Edward Leung, then begins sexually assaulting Leen Forth. Remo and Chiun confront Grassione as he uses the Dreamocizer; he dies amid the projected images, and Chiun finds Leen alive. Remo brings his arm down over the Dreamocizer’s control box. He gives up the demand for a separate house after Chiun describes Sinanju’s art, history, and science as Remo’s home.

Sources for this summary

Characters & places

Spoilers

Full articles

Characters 19

Places 8

Organizations 3

Groups 1

People 1

Lore 2

Chapter summaries19 chapters · spoilers

  1. Chapter 1

    Dr. William Westhead Wooley watches an idealized fantasy on his television. Janet Hawley visits; after seeing the device, she tells Donald (Hooks) Basumo about it. Hooks brings the information to Don Salvatore Massello, who recruits and confines him aboard a yacht; after Hooks has provided the lead, Massello’s servants kill Janet and Hooks. Massello leaves for a New York crime-family meeting.

  2. Chapter 2

    During the Boston Marathon, Remo runs circles around James Merrick and gives him a false impression of winning. Remo reflects on his life and training, then objects to Smith’s alert about a Mafia meeting; Smith says he is asking Remo to stay ready, not giving him an assignment.

  3. Chapter 3

    A Mafia council limits Massello’s authorization to $500,000 and assigns Arthur Grassione to accompany him in acquiring Wooley’s invention. Grassione’s television fixation and cruelty to Edward Leung are introduced; he accepts a conditional hit if Wooley refuses.

  4. Chapter 4

    Remo tells Chiun he wants an ordinary home. Chiun asks for the White House; Remo refuses. Smith reports that Massello and Grassione are heading to Edgewood University. Remo conditionally agrees to investigate after Smith says they can talk about a house after the assignment; Smith does not promise a house.

  5. Chapter 5

    Smith investigates Wooley and travels to St. Louis after learning the conference is imminent. Scubisci tells Grassione an “accident” to Massello would be acceptable; Grassione plans hits on Massello and Wooley.

  6. Chapter 6

    Edgewood conference coordinator Norman Belliveau manages the logistics. Reporter Patti Shea and Grassione, traveling with Leung, arrive and add pressure to limited lodging arrangements.

  7. Chapter 7

    Smith meets Remo and Chiun at Tuesday’s Pub. Smith warns that a permanent house would compromise Remo’s security; after Chiun demonstrates his technique to dart player Willie, Remo says he will use a false name and Smith says “settled.” They leave for the assignment, and Smith’s plan is to use a hotel; the house remains unresolved.

  8. Chapter 8

    At Wooley’s conference, he demonstrates the Dreamocizer, which projects fantasies onto a television. Leen Forth’s Vietnam scene is explicitly described as a Vietnam of the imagination. Woodward’s later projection depicts his imagined violence, not an established real event. Smith sees possible intelligence uses, a prediction rather than a demonstrated capability.

  9. Chapter 9

    Wooley’s background and former wife’s departure are described. Massello visits Wooley’s apartment and offers to buy the machine. Later that night Smith and Remo go to Wooley’s campus house, but Wooley and Leen are absent. Separately, the television network directs Patti Shea to obtain the device.

  10. Chapter 10

    Massello offers to protect Wooley while seeking to buy the Dreamocizer. Grassione sends two men to Wooley’s home; Remo and Chiun kill them. Wooley returns and continues to trust Massello.

  11. Chapter 11

    Wooley says he has already shaken hands on a deal with Massello and later reflects on the half-million-dollar agreement. Patti Shea presses him about a buyer and the device’s location; Smith leaves Remo on the protection detail. The source has a single “Leen Worth” spelling where the daughter is otherwise called Leen Forth.

  12. Chapter 12

    Network assassin T.B. Donleavy goes to kill Wooley. Woodward attempts to intervene but does not stop him; Donleavy kills both men with a mace in Fayerweather Hall.

  13. Chapter 13

    Remo and Chiun discover Wooley and Woodward’s bodies. Leen learns of her father’s murder, suspects a connection to the invention, calls Massello, and offers to bring him the Dreamocizer.

  14. Chapter 14

    Remo traces Donleavy to Patti Shea. Patti confirms the network hired Donleavy to kill Wooley. Donleavy’s grenade kills him and Patti; separate gelignite contributes to the blast and throws Remo against a wall. Remo’s “President Kennedy” reference occurs in a separate conversation.

  15. Chapter 15

    Chiun commandeers Grassione’s limousine television and changes the channel to The Gathering Clouds. Leen reaches Massello’s yacht with the Dreamocizer control box, disguised as a car stereo.

  16. Chapter 16

    After the explosion, Remo wakes inside the burning Wooley house. In an inward dialogue with Chiun, he calls himself “created Shiva, the Destroyer” and escapes the fire.

  17. Chapter 17

    Grassione shoots Massello and orders his men to kill the guards. Leung hides Leen and tries to protect her; Grassione kills Leung, then begins sexually assaulting Leen. The source does not specify the eventual extent of the assault.

  18. Chapter 18

    Remo and Chiun find Massello’s yacht, Il Avvocato. Marino tells Remo that Leen is dead; this is Marino’s report, not an established fact. Remo kills Marino after determining he is not Grassione.

  19. Chapter 19

    Grassione uses the Dreamocizer to indulge a fantasy of killing Remo; the images turn against him and he dies during the sequence, while the precise physical mechanism remains unclear. Chiun finds Leen alive. Remo brings his arm down over the device’s control box, but the source does not describe its condition afterward. Chiun describes Sinanju’s art, history, and science as Remo’s home, and Remo gives up the separate-house demand.

Other mentions6 names & references

Editions & covers

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Edition · cover shown

Hachette UK

2014-08-21

ISBN 9780751558210

Edition details

References & notes

Sources 25 references
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  • witness:00000072:ch19:p0090
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. Meyers directly names this numbered title among the Destroyer books he wrote in his January2012 interview. This supports his writing role, not sole authorship; contribution or rewrite scopes remain unknown.

Sweet Dreams:

Publisher's description: A professor’s device projects private fantasies onto television, attracting both Mafia interest and media-industry efforts to suppress it.

Presidential clues

No current or succession assessment is available; other retained presidential references remain in context.

The unnamed White House occupant

White House; the President

  • Chiun says he wants the White House in Washington.
  • Remo notes that someone occupies it.

no incumbent identity evidence

No officeholder name, administration, date, or identifying clue is given.

An unnamed presidential assassin

a Presidential assassin

  • The role is described with the adjective “Presidential”; no proper name is supplied.
  • The event is listed among televised historical events Grassione watched.

historical allusion present; identities unresolved

The passage gives no name or further identifying details. This draft does not use outside historical identification.

President Kennedy’s quotation

President Kennedy

  • The only name supplied is Kennedy, with the office title President.
  • Remo attributes the line to Kennedy.

historical surname and office observed; exact identity not settled by this passage alone

The source supplies no first name or further identifying detail in this passage.

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