Old Reads. Savage by Paul Boorstin. Berkley. 1980. By Brian Kirst

Just like your parents’ thick, juicy paperback books that you used to flip through to read all the sexy parts, Paul Boorstin’s Savage is a kinky, killer read.

Filled with over-the-top characters (a loveless photographer, the haunted son of a tortuous Nazi, a zaftig astrologist and numerous revolutionaries), Savage delivers with twists (an imagined assassin turns out to be a desperate and suicidal soul), blood and mayhem.

Used to working in war zones and areas of physical strife, photo journalist Chris Latham is surprised when she is assigned to the opening of a luxury hotel in the jungle. Of course, Latham soon finds herself stranded with the other guests as a murderous local seeks revenge upon the inhabitants of the building that cost him his home. Soon, leaking busoms (one character keeps her post pregnancy breasts full of milk to satisfy her Hollywood lover) are replaced with flying heads and frenzied escape attempts.

Despite the occasional slow spot and the eternal tempests of his characters, Boorstin creates quite a strong heroine in Latham and she is one final girl that all readers will want to see make it to security and freedom. That one doubts her survival to the final moments is testament to Boorstin’s joyous skill in what quickly becomes a compulsive read.