Scorched Earth

Richard Ben Sapir (1936–1987) was born in Brooklyn, New York, and he graduated from Columbia University. He worked as a journalist for the Associated Press before becoming a fiction writer. He was the coauthor, with Warren Murphy, of the Destroyer series of men’s action-adventure novels, which later became the basis for a movie titled Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins. Sapir’s first hardcover book was Bressio, followed by his favorite, The Far Arena. His novel The Body was adapted into a film starring Antonio Banderas and Derek Jacobi. Sapir’s fourth novel was Spies. The author died shortly after submitting the manuscript for his final and highly acclaimed work, Quest, which his editors found to be so well written that no changes were made before publication. It was named an alternate selection for the Book of the Month Club. That same year, the New York Times called Sapir “a brilliant professional.”