The Arms of Kali
by Richard Sapir and Warren Murphy
His name was Remo and they had not given him the right breathing equipment.

Death was in the Air

All over America the airline travelers were dying, seduced by a lovely young women and strangled by silken scarves in savage hands, The security of the nation hung over an open grave--and Remo Williams, and mentor Chiun, were ordered to slay the slayers and save the free world.

Little did Remo and Chiun suspect that their enemy was an ancient goddess who had a fifteen-hundred-year-old score to settle with Chiun. She commanded an army of youthful devotees and had the power to turn even Remo into her helpless slave. Now the Destroyer was being used for evil rather than good in an ultimate struggle between light and darkness that even Chiun feared he might not win....

Review: A great novel, which begins an entirely new era for the series. It's this novel that begins a new level for the series' mythology and takes Remo to truly superhuman levels. This is both good since several of the last dozen books were pretty stale, but also bad because it creates the "kryptonite syndrome." I explain this thusly, Superman is cool because he has no limits; because he has no limits, no one can reasonably challenge him; because no one can challenge Superman, something has to be done to weaken him so there is a perceived danger; therefore Superman has kryptonite. With the Destroyer, Will Murray seemed to find it necessary to take away Remo's memory several times over the course of the next 20-30 books, because Remo at full power is challenged by so little. As Remo gets tougher, he also gets dumber and is less able to deal with mechanical objects. This all starts in this book. Anyway, more about all of this later.

The Arms of Kali gets six big thumbs up from me! .