Reviewed by TONY BAER:
WILLIAM HJORTSBERG – Falling Angel. PI Harry Angel #1. Harcourt Brace Jovanovic, hardcover, 1978. Fawcett, paperback, 1982. Warner Books, paperback, 1986. St. Martin’s, paperback, 1996. Movie: Launched as Angel Coronary heart (Tri-Star, 1987) with Mickey Rourke, Robert De Niro, Lisa Bonet).
It’s the late 1950’s, NYC. A rich, corrupt seeming, seamy but seemly man, Louis Cipher, hires a personal dick, Harry Angel, to discover a lacking individual. That lacking individual is Johnny Favourite, a dime retailer Sinatra who bought large immediately within the thirties, between the wars.
Harry Angel is your typical center aged, hardboiled, consuming smoking detective, who prefers headbutts to refined inquiry.
He assaults headlong on the path, a hefty retainer below his belt.
Seems Favourite was catatonic after the conflict, put in a house, then disappeared. His face was blown to smithereens, with reconstruction to make him presentable, if unrecognizable.
However each time Angel will get a lead, the lead finally ends up with a load of lead. The path will get bloodier and bloodier till Angel lastly cracks the case.
Think about his shock.
A great deal of bizarre satanic rituals abound, as Johnny Favourite appears to have descended into that voodoo that he achieve this nicely.
I appreciated it. However having seen the ill-aging (and aren’t all of them) Alan Parker movie within the 80’s, I knew the twist, which sort of messed the influence up for me. It’s the sort of e-book that for those who may keep away from the movie, first time you learn it, would in all probability blow your socks off. However solely the primary time. After which afterwards you possibly can recognize it for what it was and can by no means be once more for you, like a one nite stand you had been joyful you bought away with. You’re barely embarrassed for getting taken, you smirk on the wit, you envy the thought and the hundreds of thousands of dollars it earned Hjortsberg. Then you definitely salute him and transfer on to one thing else.
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NOTE: A second e-book within the collection, entitled Angel’s Inferno, was revealed in 2020.
