FRIDAY’S FORGOTTEN BOOKS #710: PERUVIAN NIGHTMARE and LOS ANGLES HOLOCAUST By Barry N. Malzberg

“As the series went on and on and as I became more secure with the voicing and with my apparent ability to circumvent surface and not get fired, Wuliff came crazier and crazier.” (p. 9)

Barry N. Malzberg (aka, “Mike Barry”) wrote The Lone Wolf series in the white heat of the drug-addled Seventies–16 volumes so this new Stark House omnibus takes us halfway through this bloody and violent saga. Burt Wulff, avenging the death of his fiancĂ©, launches an international mission to Peru. In the Hotel Crillon in Lima, Wulff is approached to  deliver several million dollars worth of heroin to the USA. 

A Nazi, who knows who Wulff is, promises Wulff an out for the trap he’s in–as long as Wulff does what he wants. Deception and double-crosses result.

Los Angeles Holocaust begins with Wulff aboard a hijacked helicopter returning to El Paso from Peru. Wulff has millions of dollars worth of heroin in a bag. Wulff connects with Williams, his former partner on the NYPD, who was stabbed in Chicago Slaughter. Williams leaves his pregnant wife in New York, buys a U-Haul full of weapons from a Harlem priest, kills a couple of carjackers in Nebraska, and arrives in L.A. ready to do battle.

The stage is set for an epic battle fueled by the heroin worth millions and Wulff’s lust for vengeance. Drug cartels, Mafia dons, illegal drugs galore mixed with sudden death and carnage: The Lone Wolf series takes the reader on a guided tour of the modern Circles of Hell. GRADE: B+ (for both)

6 thoughts on “FRIDAY’S FORGOTTEN BOOKS #710: PERUVIAN NIGHTMARE and LOS ANGLES HOLOCAUST By Barry N. Malzberg

    1. george Post author

      Jerry, and PERUVIAN NIGHTMARE/LOS ANGELES HOLOCOAUST has this blurb gracing the back cover: “I have long maintained that Malzberg’s portrayal of The Lone Wolf is one of the most brilliant in the genre.” Do you remember writing those perceptive words?

      Reply
      1. Todd Mason

        I know the feeling. Greg Shepard was kind enough to quote another blogger on the back cover of Malzberg’s double-volume of THE MAN WHO LOVED THE MIDNIGHT LADY and IN THE STONE HOUSE. Rarely has the blurber been so overmatched by the blurbed.

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