Status
Available
Call number
Collection
Publication
Centipede Press (2006), Paperback, 302 pages
Description
Edgar Award Finalist: The hunt for a vanished singer leads a detective into the depths of the occult in this "terrific" novel (Stephen King). Big-band frontman Johnny Favorite was singing for the troops when a Luftwaffe fighter squadron strafed the bandstand, killing the crowd and leaving the singer near death. The army returned him to a private hospital in upstate New York, leaving him to live out his days as a vegetable while the world forgot him. But Louis Cyphre never forgets. Cyphre had a contract with the singer, stipulating payment upon Johnny's death--payment that will be denied as long as Johnny clings to life. When Cyphre hires private investigator Harry Angel to find Johnny at the hospital, Angel learns that the singer has disappeared. It is no ordinary missing-person's case. Everyone he questions dies soon after, as Angel's investigation ensnares him in a bizarre tangle of black magic, carnival freaks, and grisly voodoo. When the sinister Louis Cyphre begins appearing in Angel's dreams, the detective fears for his life, his sanity, and his soul. Falling Angel was the basis for the Alan Parker film Angel Heart, starring Mickey Rourke, Robert De Niro, and Lisa Bonet. This ebook features an illustrated biography of William Hjortsberg including rare photos from the author's personal collection.… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member bcquinnsmom
I'm a huge fan of noir crime fiction, and someone recommended this book as one I'd like in that genre. And sure enough, it held up as a fine noir novel. There's the private detective, Harold Angel, working out of a crappy little office, dressed sloppily, with stains on his tie; places that people
So I won't spoil the book for others by going into any further detail here, but I will say that if you like a touch of the supernatural in your fiction, then you've got to add this to your reading stack.
Very well done.
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wouldn't go to after dark; a private hospital in the country, characters involved in the dark world of voodoo and black magic etc. etc. And Angel's been hired by someone to find a missing singer who's been in said hospital but has disappeared. With only a few leads, he's off. But the closer I came towards the end, the more I realized that there's something just a wee bit off kilter here and then I got the surprise of my life. Talk about plot twist! So I won't spoil the book for others by going into any further detail here, but I will say that if you like a touch of the supernatural in your fiction, then you've got to add this to your reading stack.
Very well done.
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LibraryThing member Kattermole
This isn't particularly something I would normally pick up, hard boiled detective fiction, but a friend recommended it, I finally found a copy so, I read it. It was unputdownable. (Is that really a word?) I did guess, more or less, who dun it, about half way through the book, but not how, or why. I
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liked the language. "His voice was as oily as that greasy kids stuff...", though younger readers might not get all of the allusions. I loved the setting, 1950s New York which is almost another character. There are characters who practice black magic, white magic , Voodoo, you name it. You could argue though, that nothing supernatural actually happens, despite what some of the characters believe. There are lots of murders, each one more gruesome than the last. I advise you to read this with a towel wrapped around the book, because you don't want blood spilling out all over your nice clean clothes. And I still haven't worked out why Cyphre hired Harry Angel in the first place. Maybe that will become clear next time I read it. Show Less
LibraryThing member datrappert
Incredible noir detective story is compelling, disgusting (at least to my wife), and unforgettable. If you haven't had the chance to read it, and better yet, if you have no idea what it is about, just plunge in. Don't read anything on the cover or the internet or anywhere. Just prepare to be
The book is far superior to the film version, Angel Heart. Maybe somebody should take another shot at it.
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enthralled.The book is far superior to the film version, Angel Heart. Maybe somebody should take another shot at it.
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LibraryThing member TheCrow2
A great story of Harry Angel private eye whose invertigation turns into a supernatural horror story. The film aAngel heart is one of my favourites so I was very curious about the book and I wasn't disappointed....
LibraryThing member Molecular
Chilling
Inspired writing and chilling plot as the PI is hired to find a crooner from the days of swing whose gone missing for fifteen years. Soon the plot thickens with voodoo, Aztec sacrifice and black magic. People our PI, Harry Angel talks to keep dying in sacrificial ways. The book centers
Inspired writing and chilling plot as the PI is hired to find a crooner from the days of swing whose gone missing for fifteen years. Soon the plot thickens with voodoo, Aztec sacrifice and black magic. People our PI, Harry Angel talks to keep dying in sacrificial ways. The book centers
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around the question will he find this crooner, or be the next to die? The only reason I didn't give it five stars was it was too easy to figure out the ending. I guessed who Cyphre was at the beginning. I know this is a cult book, and I did appreciate all the creepy thrills, but a bit more surprise would have gotten that fifth star. The rest was all there, characters, pacing,imagery, dialogue, and all the rest. The plot was just a bit too transparent. I would recommend for people who like very creepy horror books. It's not that there is a lot of gore, it is a different type of spine-chilling creepy. Show Less
LibraryThing member jselliott
This novel is a brilliant piece of crime fiction and very postmodern in its exploration of the split self. While I already knew the 'twist' going into it—which I shan't reveal, if you're not familiar with this novel and the film version Angel Heart—the effect it had on my faith in the
Also, how can you go wrong with a late 1950s New York City setting, voodoo, satanism, gumshoe detectives, witty one-liners and bumbling police?
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traditional detective-as-narrator was certainly challenged. My complicity, less so, but that's a story for another place!Also, how can you go wrong with a late 1950s New York City setting, voodoo, satanism, gumshoe detectives, witty one-liners and bumbling police?
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LibraryThing member runner56
This book was recommended to me on a bookmark called "50 of the best horror novels" and it is technically incorrect as I would not refer to it as horror more crime noir with grizzly undertones. It's the story of Harry Angel, tough New York PI, and his search for Johnny Favorite one time crooner who
The story moves at a furious pace and give the impression and smells of downtown NYC in the late 1950's with all its undertones, underlife and seedy jazz clubs.."I found a stool at the bar and ordered a snifter of Remy Martin. The band was playing a blues, the guitar darting in and out of the melody like a hummingbird. The piano throbbed and thundered. Toot's Sweet's left hand was every bit as good as Kenny Pomeroy had promised". Unfortunately, at times, with the introduction of so many characters, the main storyline became a little confused and I sometimes found it necessary to backtrack before continuing. Having said that the effort of completing the story was certainly rewarded with an intelligent and somewhat horrific ending.
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sang with the Spider Simpson orchestra in the 1940's. What I enjoy about noir crime is not so much the story but the setting, the characters, and the language used. We get to meet Spider Simpson, Evangeline Proudfoot, Madame Zora, Toots Sweet all coming under the suspicious and watchful eye of our great PI Harry Angel! Of course as every Raymond Chandler or Dashiell Hammett fan will know it is always the fast and furious cracking dialogue that makes the story buzz...."She had large breasts and slim hips and emphasized them with a pink angora sweater and a tight black skirt. Her hair was on the brassy side of platinum"..."A million square feet of office space sheathed in embossed aluminium panels. It looked like a forty-story cheese grater."...."She was dressed all in black, like a weekend bohemian in a Village coffeehouse"...." The curtainrod was bent in a V and the drapes sagged like the stockings of a hooker on a weeklong drunk".The story moves at a furious pace and give the impression and smells of downtown NYC in the late 1950's with all its undertones, underlife and seedy jazz clubs.."I found a stool at the bar and ordered a snifter of Remy Martin. The band was playing a blues, the guitar darting in and out of the melody like a hummingbird. The piano throbbed and thundered. Toot's Sweet's left hand was every bit as good as Kenny Pomeroy had promised". Unfortunately, at times, with the introduction of so many characters, the main storyline became a little confused and I sometimes found it necessary to backtrack before continuing. Having said that the effort of completing the story was certainly rewarded with an intelligent and somewhat horrific ending.
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LibraryThing member Mrs_McGreevy
William Hjortsberg's Falling Angel was the basis for the movie Angel Heart, and, Mickey Rourke notwithstanding, it's a mighty fine adaptation. Even if you've seen the movie, the book is well worth a read, but those of you who haven't seen the movie are in for a special treat.
Falling Angel tells the
Although the story is chock full of supernatural elements, the style is completely a hard-boiled detective story of the Hammett/Chandler/Cain era. It's a nice juxtaposition of style and content. The noir detective tends toward the cynical anyway, so Angel's disbelief in the occult occurrences rings true. The crime novels from that era deal with all kinds of conspiracies and chicanery, but everything is fully grounded in reality. There's always a reason, a human reason, for all the trouble that occurs. It's a treat to take that same style and those same assumptions and look at them all from a different angle.
Hjortsberg does an excellent job in keeping the reader guessing as the plot unfolds. Just when you think you know what's going to happen (or what just happened), the story slips away from your grasp. Hjortsberg plays us just as subtly and just as thoroughly as his characters play one another. Up until the final revelations, you're never quite sure just how it's all going to turn out.
And now for the bad news: those of you who've seen Angel Heart know the surprise that Hjortsberg has in store for the reader. Knowing how it all turns out before you get there is a real bitch. While this doesn't invalidate the story, it does mean that you get thwacked in the forehead with foreshadowing every other paragraph or so. This was incredibly disappointing to me the first time I read Falling Angel. I was actually angry at the movie for being too good of an adaptation and therefore spoiling a mighty fine read. But you know what? If the worst thing you can say about a book is that someone made a pretty good movie out of it, then that's probably a pretty safe recommendation.
Falling Angel tells the
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story of Harry Angel: a P.I. hired by a mysterious stranger to find out the whereabouts of 1940's crooner Johnny Favorite. What seems fairly straightforward at first glance becomes more and more complicated as the investigation continues. Soon bodies start appearing and it looks like our man Angel is being set up to take the fall. Every new piece of the puzzle he finds reveals just how much of the story he hasn't been told. The investigation takes many unexpected turns and eventually Harry ends up involved with blues musicians, fake swamis, voodoo priestesses and a satanic cult.Although the story is chock full of supernatural elements, the style is completely a hard-boiled detective story of the Hammett/Chandler/Cain era. It's a nice juxtaposition of style and content. The noir detective tends toward the cynical anyway, so Angel's disbelief in the occult occurrences rings true. The crime novels from that era deal with all kinds of conspiracies and chicanery, but everything is fully grounded in reality. There's always a reason, a human reason, for all the trouble that occurs. It's a treat to take that same style and those same assumptions and look at them all from a different angle.
Hjortsberg does an excellent job in keeping the reader guessing as the plot unfolds. Just when you think you know what's going to happen (or what just happened), the story slips away from your grasp. Hjortsberg plays us just as subtly and just as thoroughly as his characters play one another. Up until the final revelations, you're never quite sure just how it's all going to turn out.
And now for the bad news: those of you who've seen Angel Heart know the surprise that Hjortsberg has in store for the reader. Knowing how it all turns out before you get there is a real bitch. While this doesn't invalidate the story, it does mean that you get thwacked in the forehead with foreshadowing every other paragraph or so. This was incredibly disappointing to me the first time I read Falling Angel. I was actually angry at the movie for being too good of an adaptation and therefore spoiling a mighty fine read. But you know what? If the worst thing you can say about a book is that someone made a pretty good movie out of it, then that's probably a pretty safe recommendation.
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LibraryThing member AltheaAnn
This is the book that the movie 'Angel Heart' was based on. Now, I liked Angel Heart a lot when it came out - but that was quite a while ago. So I didn't remember all the details - but I did keep thinking the story sounded really familiar. (Like, I couldn't understand why the reviews/blurbs all
There are definitely some differences - the book takes place solely in New York City, not in New Orleans, for example.
It's very much a noir/mystery, a story of a private detective hired to search for a missing once-was pop singer, with a horror element that only becomes clear at the end. It's well-done - got a good emotional impact - but in order for it to make SENSE, you've really just got to say, "well, I guess satan, I mean, Louis Cypher, hahaha, does inexplicable things for no good reason other than that he is evil."
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said it was 'strikingly original', etc). ;-)There are definitely some differences - the book takes place solely in New York City, not in New Orleans, for example.
It's very much a noir/mystery, a story of a private detective hired to search for a missing once-was pop singer, with a horror element that only becomes clear at the end. It's well-done - got a good emotional impact - but in order for it to make SENSE, you've really just got to say, "well, I guess satan, I mean, Louis Cypher, hahaha, does inexplicable things for no good reason other than that he is evil."
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LibraryThing member DaveWilde
Hjortsberg has given us readers a great gift with this book. It is a nineteen fifties style hardboiled detective novel with elements of mysticism, madness, voodoo, and black magic thrown in. It is an evenly paced novel that really takes off in the second half. It sort of combines themes from
Although this was made into a hit movie starring Mickey Rourke and Lisa Bonet, the novel itself is well worth reading because it opens up a world of dreams and madness as Angel slowly but surely peels away the layers of mystery surrounding the jazz player's disappearance.
If you have read other books by Hjortsberg such as Mañana, don't open this with any preconceived expectations. It is not anything like Hjortsberg's other work.
Smoky, jazzy, hip, dark, strange, unearthly, and just plain good reading.
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hardboiled pulp fiction with seventies-era horror movies. It takes the reader back to post world war two in a land of jazz and women and seedy haunts on Broadway and takes the reader through the funhouse carnival that was Coney Island. Hired by Louis Cipher (a thinly disguised client), Harry Angel must find a jazz musician that disappeared fifteen years ago when everyone thought he was either dead or ensconced in a mental hospital upstate. but to find him, Angel has to wade through all sorts of seedy characters who want nothing to do with him and to fall for a girl who dabbles in white magic. But, that is nothing compared to the world of horror that he finds once Angel digs deeper.Although this was made into a hit movie starring Mickey Rourke and Lisa Bonet, the novel itself is well worth reading because it opens up a world of dreams and madness as Angel slowly but surely peels away the layers of mystery surrounding the jazz player's disappearance.
If you have read other books by Hjortsberg such as Mañana, don't open this with any preconceived expectations. It is not anything like Hjortsberg's other work.
Smoky, jazzy, hip, dark, strange, unearthly, and just plain good reading.
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LibraryThing member Ellemir
A great mixture between a private investigator story (think Raymond Chandler) and a horror novel. Unfortunately I read it after watching the movie (which is also great, but different in some aspects), which is almost always a bad idea since it replaces the pictures in your mind with those of the
Of course the ending is not unexpected - there are so many clues in the book. But that does not really matter, as the tension comes from on the cat-and-mouse game between Louis Cyphre and Harry Angel, the other mysterious characters and their role in the story and the setting itself, a dark and sinister version of New York in the 50s.
A good read for fans of both genres.
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movie.Of course the ending is not unexpected - there are so many clues in the book. But that does not really matter, as the tension comes from on the cat-and-mouse game between Louis Cyphre and Harry Angel, the other mysterious characters and their role in the story and the setting itself, a dark and sinister version of New York in the 50s.
A good read for fans of both genres.
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LibraryThing member Zare
Movie based on the novel (Angel Heart) seems to be better known than the book. And that is a pity because this is one excellent thriller with supernatural elements that are scary but not in overtly (slasher like) way. Some of the elements of the story and definitely characters are much better
I won't go into details here because, unfortunately, both book and movie suffer from what I call Sixth Sense Syndrome - once seen/read (and if you have seen the movie before reading the book - like I have - you made the greatest offense :)) you need to fully forget it to enjoy it again (and since it is truly interesting story I bet you wont forget it that easily :)).
Our main hero, PI Harry Angelo, gets hired by a mysterious figure to find even more mysterious singer who is thought to be dead for decade. Task starts relatively routinely but soon Harry starst to see weird behavior and patterns with people he meets and questions. Soon he will find himself throwin into the unknown [and rather dark] world of voodoo and other rather darkish Southern/Caribbean religions and people beliefs. Final revelation will hit him like a sledge hammer.
Written in the best manner of noir detective books, story flows very fast and reader gets glued to the pages 'til the very end. Harry is pretty street-wise (although he gets into decent amount of predicaments) and quite a smart mouth so dialogues do get very interesting (not that the other sides in conversation dont have quips and remarks of their own). I especially enjoyed conversations Harry has with his employer.
Highly recommended.
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presented in the novel (IMHO).I won't go into details here because, unfortunately, both book and movie suffer from what I call Sixth Sense Syndrome - once seen/read (and if you have seen the movie before reading the book - like I have - you made the greatest offense :)) you need to fully forget it to enjoy it again (and since it is truly interesting story I bet you wont forget it that easily :)).
Our main hero, PI Harry Angelo, gets hired by a mysterious figure to find even more mysterious singer who is thought to be dead for decade. Task starts relatively routinely but soon Harry starst to see weird behavior and patterns with people he meets and questions. Soon he will find himself throwin into the unknown [and rather dark] world of voodoo and other rather darkish Southern/Caribbean religions and people beliefs. Final revelation will hit him like a sledge hammer.
Written in the best manner of noir detective books, story flows very fast and reader gets glued to the pages 'til the very end. Harry is pretty street-wise (although he gets into decent amount of predicaments) and quite a smart mouth so dialogues do get very interesting (not that the other sides in conversation dont have quips and remarks of their own). I especially enjoyed conversations Harry has with his employer.
Highly recommended.
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Awards
Edgar Award (Nominee — First Novel — 1979)
Horror: The 100 Best Books (1978)
Original publication date
1978
Physical description
302 p.; 8.4 inches
ISBN
1933618086 / 9781933618081