The Death Merchant is the title and lead character of a series of men's action-adventure books written by Joseph Rupert Rosenberger and published by Pinnacle Books from 1971 to 1988. 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 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
According to information in #30, The Shambhala Strike, Camellion was born in St. Louis, Missouri. He keeps a ranch in Votaw, Texas, where he lives when not on a mission and has two pet pigs, known as Damon and Pythias. Two books, #30 The Shambhala Strike and #53 The Judas Scrolls mention Camellion studying at Saint Louis University, where he received a Bachelor of Science degree. It is stated in the former book that Camellion holds a degree in engineering from Washington University in St. Louis. Three other books (#1 The Death Merchant, #9 Laser Mission, #11 Manhattan Wipeout) mention that Camellion is an ex-teacher of history, but this may simply be a cover story.
Camellion is very interested in the occult and the prophecies of Nostradamus.
Camellion's father was in the hardware business (#13, The Mato Grosso Horror).
Camellion donates an unspecified percentage of his fees for each mission to assist struggling college students and also the underprivileged in Texas (#17, "The Zemlya Expedition").
The character uses at least one alias in every book. Examples: James Valdorian, Chester Giffwangle, Leonard Higgdon, Emil Milrich, Milton Sessions, Ludwig Huelsenbeck, 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.
In the first book, he is hired by the Mafia to kill an informant. In later books, he never works for organized crime again but accepts missions from the ONI (Office of Naval Intelligence), NSA, CIA and MAD (West German counter-intelligence)
The series is more nihilistic than many of its 1970s and 1980s action series counterparts; Camellion 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 his team killing 18 New York Police Department officers who try to stop them during a mission. Another book series by Rosenberger, COBRA, features similar characters in this regard.