Death Merchant

The Death Merchant is the title and lead character of a series of men's action-adventure books written by Joseph R. Rosenberger. Richard Joseph Camellion, as described in the books is a master of disguise, the martial arts and wet-work. Cynical and lethal in equal measure, his normal employer was the CIA - at a cost of $100,000 tax free bucks a mission.

He is described on the back of the books as "Richard Camellion, master of death, destruction, and disguise. He gets the dirty jobs, the impossible missions, the operations that cannot be handled by the FBI, CIA, or any other legal or extra-legal force. He is a man without a face, without a single identifying characteristic...except that he succeeds by being a Merchant of Death!"

Fictional Character Biography

Birthplace: #30, The Shamballa Strike reveals that Camellion's birthplace is St. Louis, Missouri. As an adult, Richard Camellion keeps a ranch in Texas where he lives when not on a mission.

Education: Two books, #30 The Shamballa Strike and #53 The Judas Scrolls mention Camellion studying at St. Louis University, where he received a Bachelor of Science degree. It is also stated in the former book that Camellion holds a degree in engineering from Washington University in St. Louis. Two books (#1 The Death Merchant and #9 Laser Mission) mention that Camellion is an ex-teacher of history, but this may simply be a cover story.

Hobbies: Gardening, Martial Arts, Amateur archaeology (mentioned in #9 Laser Mission and #61 Bulgarian Termination). Camellion is very interested in the occult and the prophecies of Nostradamus.

Alias: James Valdorian, Chester Giffwangle, Leonard Higgdon, Emil Milrich, Cempt Tobtocpam, Thomas Wang-Ji. On two occasions, when asked if Camellion is his real name, he replies that it does not matter. #63 The Soul Search Project reveals that Richard Joseph Camellion is not the name on his birth certificate.

Frequently disguises himself (and fellow mercs) during operations

Worked with: ONI (Office of Naval Intelligence), NSA, CIA, MAD (West German counter-intelligence) Known enemies: the KGB, SWAPO, GROB (Indonesian Political Security Service), various terrorist organizations.

The Death Merchant has two pet pigs, known as Damon and Pythias.

The Death Merchant is notable in being rather more nihilistic than many of his 1970s and 1980s action series counterparts; he normally does not think twice about killing innocent people if it is the quickest way to get the mission accomplished. For example, #62, The Soul Search Project sees The Death Merchant's team killing over fifty New York Police Department officers who try to stop them during a mission.

In an early book, however, he does mention a former girlfriend, "the one true love of his life" who had been killed by the KGB, and he on one occasion states that he will not feel truly satisfied until the Soviet Union is "a sea of radioactive glass."

The Death Merchant's face is not described in great detail, and it is mentioned that he has had plastic surgery to alter his appearance numerous times. He does, however, like his men's action adventure counterpart Mack Bolan, have blue eyes which are occasionally described as "icy." The Death Merchant is described as being about six feet tall and having a slender, wiry frame.

The Books

1. The Death Merchant - Richard Camellion versus the Chicago mob.

2. Operation Overkill

3. The Psychotron Plot- The Russians and Egyptians team up to use a brain scrambling device on Israel.

4. Chinese Conspiracy

5. Satan Strike -- A dictator controls a potent super-virus

6. The Albanian Connection

7. The Castro File

8. The Billionaire Mission

9. The Laser War - A Nazi super-laser is pursued.

10. The Mainline Plot

11. Manhattan Wipeout

12. The KGB Frame-Flash! Camellion turns double agent. The target of both his colleagues and his enemies, the Death Merchant becomes the object of the most intense manhunt in the history of international espionage.

13. The Mato Grosso Horror

14. Vengeance of the Golden Hawk -- Saving Tel Aviv from a rocket barrage containing a deadly nerve gas.

15. The Iron Swastika Plot

16. Invasion of the Clones -- Camellion versus five clones of himself in Africa.

17. The Zemlya Expedition

18. Nightmare in Algeria

19. Armageddon, USA!-

20. Hell in Hindu Land

21. The Pole Star Secret

22. The Kondrashev Chase

23. The Budapest Action

24. The Kronos Plot -- Fidel Castro plans to destroy the Panama Canal

25. The Enigma Project -- Spying on Russia under cover of finding Noah's Ark.

26. The Mexican Hit

27. The Surinam Affair

28. Nipponese Nightmare -- Japanese terrorists try to frame the CIA for murder.

29. Fatal Formula -- Tracking a man-made flu strain.

30. Shambhala Strike -- An ancient maze of caverns means China could easily invade.

31. Operation Thunderbolt -- An bomb-maker is captured by North Korean forces.

32. Deadly Manhunt -- An ally betrays Camellion.

33. Alaska Conspiracy

34. Operation Mind-Murder

35. Massacre in Rome -- A civilian seems to be able to predict the future.

36. The Cosmic Reality Kill -- A cult leader is targeting kids.

37. The Bermuda Triangle Action

38. The Burning Blue Death -- Spontaneous human combustion wreaks havoc.

39. The Fourth Reich -- A Neo-Nazi conspiracy is crushed.

40. Blueprint Invisibility

41. Shamrock Smash

42. High Command Murder

43. The Devil's Trashcan

44. Island of the Damned -- Soviet forces develop mind-reading technology.

45. The Rim of Fire Conspiracy- Soviet forces hope to destroy the USA with triggered volcanoes.

47. Operation Skyhook-

48. Psionics War -

49. Night of Peacock

50. The Hellbomb Theft -

51. The Inca File

52. The Flight of the Phoenix

53. The Judas Scrolls -

54. Apocalypse, USA! -

55. Slaughter in Salvador -- The Death Merchant heads to war-torn El Salvador, where he tangles with death squads and communist Sandinista rebels, with predictable carnage.

56. Afghanistan Crashout -

57. The Romanian Operation --

58. The Silicon Valley Connection

59. The Burma Probe -- The Death Merchant teams up with Thunderbolt Unit Omega and Lester Vernon "The Widowmaker" Cole to stop a Chinese territory grab.

60. The Methuselah Factor -

61. The Bulgarian Termination

62. The Soul Search Project -- Camellion pursues a scientist who can talk to the dead. The protagonist and his allies willingly kill several dozen NYPD officers.

63. The Pakistan Mission - A Communist plan to invade Pakistan.

64. The Atlantean Horror --

65. Mission Deadly Snow --

66. The Cobra Chase--

67. Escape From Gulag Taria--

68. The Hindu Trinity Caper--

69. The Miracle Mission- The Shroud Of Turin is stolen.

70. The Greenland Mission -- Camellion and his crew investigate a 'U.F.O.' in Greenland.

'Apocalypse'-- also called 'Super Death Merchant #1' was released in 1987, and is not part of the standard series. (Not to be confused with "Apocalypse U.S.A") The Soviets perfect a weather-control machine and use it to cause mass destruction; the book ends with nuclear war imminent.

Tools and Gadgets

1. Microwave Impedator (aka Mister Fuck Up) Roughly a briefcase sized device, can render useless infrared and other photo-electric detectors. Also can jam transmitters of audio and motion detectors, which operate upon the Doppler principle. Has a built-in self destruct mechasism.
2. The Plan : Set of lockpick tools inside a small metal cylinder, which can hidden in the rectum, to be used in case of capture and search (Used in #4 Chinese Conspiracy and #16 Invasion of the Clones)
3. D-SEP (Distant Sound Evaluator Pickup or the Big Ear): Tiny device that can amplify existing sound so one can hear a whisper at 30m and breathing at 15m.
4. The GF Mechanism : An electromagnetic field device which can render large objects (such as helicopters) temporarily invisible and inaudible. Lethal for a human to cross through.

Fellow Mercs

1. Vallie "The Eye" West
2. Vernon "The Widowmaker" Cole
3. Merle Duvane
4. Colonel "Mad" Mike Quinlan : Commander of Thunderbolt Unit Omega (merc outfit)
5. Hannibal Llewellen "H.L." Kartz
6. George McCauley II
7. Tom Pierson

Camellion's CIA contact and overseer is named Courtland "The Fox" Grojean

See also

• Able Team
• The Butcher
• The Destroyer
• The Executioner
• Nick Carter-Killmaster
• The Penetrator
• Phoenix Force

Links

• Modern Pulps: The Death Merchant -- overview of the series and descriptions of four of the novels
• http://www.thedeathmerchant.com/ -- A link to a site claiming that a new DM novel is coming out in summer 2011. Contains short summaries of all the novels in the series along with cover images.