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    The Million-Dollar Wound
    The Million-Dollar Wound
    The Million-Dollar Wound
    Audiobook10 hours

    The Million-Dollar Wound

    Written by Max Allan Collins

    Narrated by Dan John Miller

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    In 1942, Chicago P.I. Nate Heller and his childhood pal, boxer Barney Ross, join the Marines and see bloody action together at Guadalcanal. Upon his return to gangland Chicago, the shell-shocked Heller—more dangerous than ever—is thrust into the midst of an inter-gang war to depose Capone’s successor Frank Nitti, whose minions are infiltrating Hollywood movie unions.

    In this crushing finale to rough-and-tumble Nate Heller’s Frank Nitti trilogy, Max Allan Collins delves into the damaged psyche of war veterans as a full-on gangland war threatens to explode. As tempers in Hollywood flare-up, Heller attempts to solve a murder committed behind enemy lines, and deal with the drug addiction of his friend Barney. But not even the company of fan dancer Sally Rand can ease Heller’s conscience as he is haunted by the events at Guadalcanal even as he’s surrounded by the murder and mayhem of Nitti’s final, violent days.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrilliance Audio
    Release dateOct 25, 2011
    ISBN9781455830886
    The Million-Dollar Wound
    Author

    Max Allan Collins

    Max Allan Collins is a Mystery Writers of America Grand Master. He is the author of the Shamus Award-winning Nathan Heller thrillers and the graphic novel Road to Perdition, basis of the Academy Award-winning film starring Tom Hanks. His innovative Quarry novels led to a 2016 Cinemax series. He has completed a dozen posthumous Mickey Spillane mysteries, and wrote the syndicated Dick Tracy series for more than fifteen years. His one-man show, Eliot Ness: An Untouchable Life, was an Edgar Award finalist. He lives in Iowa.

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    Reviews for The Million-Dollar Wound

    4/5

    34 ratings2 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Nathan Heller is Max Allan Collins' invention. Heller is a fictional
      character who interacted throughout the twentieth century with
      interesting figures and in controversial situations ranging from Eliot Ness' war on organized crime to Marilyn Monroe's last days. As bizarre and silly as the concept sounds in the abstract, in Collins' capable
      hands, the concept actually works and works well.

      In this novel, which is the third of the "Nitti" era Heller novels, Heller and his buddy, ex-boxer Barney Ross, enlist in the marines. Both are too old to enlist, but they lie about their age and enlist anyway. Collins takes the pair through the drunken evening that ended with Heller enlisting and to Camp Pendleton, where they underwent basic training. The pair then head out to Guadalcanal to an incredible play-by-play
      foxhole fight with the Japanese army. The action is so intense, you
      actually feel as if you are watching a war movie, not reading (or
      listening) to a novel.

      I had already read about how Heller "met" Monroe and the Kennedys
      years later, but I assumed that Barney was just another character in
      the story, not a real-life celebrity. Ross (aka Beryl Rosofsky) was
      actually a world champion in three weight divisions and decorated
      veteran of World War II where he fought Guadalcanal and killed nearly
      two dozen enemy troops in one night. His father had wanted him to
      become a rabbi, but after his father was killed resisting a robbery, Ross became a street brawler and then a professional boxer. Never knocked
      out in 81 fights, he finished his career with 72 wins and is consistently
      ranked as one of the best fighters of all time.

      The story then takes a wounded Heller (wounded in that great battle
      at Guadalcanal) back to the states where he slowly puts together who
      he is and is discharged so that he can testify against reputed mobster
      Frank Nitti.

      The rest of the book follows Heller through Chicago and Hollywood as
      he deals with organized crime's entry into the Hollywood unions.
      For me, the best parts were the war stories and Heller's recovery, but,
      by all means, read the whole book, it's all good.
    • 3/5
      There is a fairly good Nate Heller novel, with little of the excitement of the classic first two novels, but none of the dryness and improbabilities of the later stories.