For modern readers there will immediately be concerns raised when on Friday the 13th a lawyer comes into the office of private detective Harry Angel and sets up a meeting with his client, a certain Mr. Louis Cyphre at his client’s office on 666 5th Avenue. The reader may feel smug in his knowledge about what will probably happen but I would advise against it. As for Harry its 1959 and he is clueless about the meaning of the number. For the readers its 2016 and they may know what this number stands for but as they push on into the novel, they will soon join Harry in feeling clueless as well. That’s just one of the surprises author William Hjortsburg has in store in his novel Falling Angel.
This novel was once described by another famous horror writer as “ What would have happened if Raymond Chandler had written The Exorcist”, and that’s about as good a description as any I can come up with. While I’m sure many people can list novels involving detectives and the occult, when this novel came out in 1978 nothing else like it existed. Hjortsburg never really considered himself a horror writer and he spent a great deal of time on movies. The classic 1985-fantasy film Legend starring Tom Cruise was written by him, as was the screen adaptation of this work known as Angel Heart, which had a different setting. Perhaps this is why this novel works so well. Instead of writing it as a horror or occult story he approaches it as a hard-boiled detective novel. Like any one of a million detective novels the reader is working along side the protagonist trying to tie together clues to get to the truth. Unfortunately unlike those detective novels things are not going to end as tidy or as pleasantly as the butler being dragged away in handcuffs.
The request is simple enough. Cyphre is looking for a man named Johnny Favorite, an up and coming singer before World War II broke out. Unfortunately after he was drafted he was sent to Tunisia where he was injured and suffered from amnesia. When it looked like he wasn’t going to recover he was sent back to the States and placed in a sanitarium. The only problem is that when Cyphre went to find him he was no longer there. Standard fare thinks Harry Angel, after all missing persons is bread and butter work for private investigators. The doctor in charge gives Harry the runaround and later Harry finds him dead. With that lead erased he soon finds his ex-girlfriend, a woman known for “astrological consultations”. Not really much of anything Harry thinks. Lots of guys have dated crackpot dames, although when he starts working through the musicians who knew Johnny he finds out that Johnny had been initiated but not baptized into Obeah also known as Voodoo. Seems that Johnny and the voodoo priestess had a thing going and he left her pregnant and her now grown up daughter has taken her place. From here Harry starts a slow but accelerating tumble down the rabbit hole. From in-charge private investigator he moves to an individual quickly getting caught up in a series of events he is loosing control of. The end comes quick and hard.
This novel has a lot of interesting little quirks. For those who have lived in New York City the description of the city in the fifties is almost like a tour of lost New York. The interactions between people of various social strata and races are also pretty interesting. A black female pharmacist in a African American neighborhood would seem to be fairly powerless on cursory examination, a deeper look however, shows her to be a priestess with many resources and individuals at her command. Hjortsberg keeps the plot moving along, at 280 some pages its not a big novel but one gets the sense that all the fat has been trimmed. For those interested in the horror genre this novel is definitely considered one of the classics. For those lucky enough to get a Centipede Press copy as a gift, that edition includes a letter by Stephen King to the publisher enthusing about what a great read it is and I would definitely agree.
© 2016 George Anadiotis
Falling Angel
By William Hjortsburg
Published August 1st 2010 by Centipede Press (first published 1978)
280 pages
Thanks for spotlighting ‘Falling Angel’. I have the 1996 edition by No Exit Press – a UK Crime inprint – and for me the first chapter, the first page, is a diamond of the American Hardboiled complete with glinting facets of what is to come. It is now sitting on my desk and I may well re-read it.
Thanks for your note Linda. I was simply going to write a review and ended up rereading it myself!