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A review by modernzorker
Falling Angel by William Hjortsberg
4.0
Having just finished "Falling Angel" there are only three words that come to mind: Ho. Lee. Shit.
Hjortsberg's story is absolutely mesmerizing, an awesome mix of Raymond Chandler detective noir and Richard Bachman horror without a conscience. I've not seen the movie Angel Heart, but after reading some reviews I'm not sure I want to. This is one story I'm not willing to spoil by watching the film.
It all starts out so innocently...a streetwise private eye, a mysterious client who wants to track down a missing person, and a trail of leads that twist and turn into one dead-end cul-de-sac after another. And the deeper our PI digs into shadows, the worse it gets. The leads he finds while attempting to locate the missing crooner Johnny Favorite keep turning up dead in increasingly violent and horrifying fashions. And the more he uncovers about the vanished man's past, the more bizarre the story becomes: voodoo cults, sideshow magicians, prominent businessmen, even the aging fiancee Johnny left behind when he pulled his disappearing act all fit together in a macabre backdrop of New York painted with hell's own blackened and scorched blood.
It's sordid. It's violent. It's sexual. It's perverse and unnatural, and the twist at the end smacks you in the face so hard and yet so logically that you'll curse yourself for not seeing it coming because the clues were there all along. Hjortsberg hung his hook out in plain sight, and you along with Angel run headlong into it, not realizing until it's too late.
Detective novels really aren't my thing, but I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of the literary cesspool this story dragged me through. Even if you can't stand noir fiction, even if horror really isn't your thing, this book is something else. If you've got the stomach, you'll tear though it like the blade of a sharp knife through the neck of a thrashing chicken.
You may need a shower when it's over, but dear God is it worth the mess.
Hjortsberg's story is absolutely mesmerizing, an awesome mix of Raymond Chandler detective noir and Richard Bachman horror without a conscience. I've not seen the movie Angel Heart, but after reading some reviews I'm not sure I want to. This is one story I'm not willing to spoil by watching the film.
It all starts out so innocently...a streetwise private eye, a mysterious client who wants to track down a missing person, and a trail of leads that twist and turn into one dead-end cul-de-sac after another. And the deeper our PI digs into shadows, the worse it gets. The leads he finds while attempting to locate the missing crooner Johnny Favorite keep turning up dead in increasingly violent and horrifying fashions. And the more he uncovers about the vanished man's past, the more bizarre the story becomes: voodoo cults, sideshow magicians, prominent businessmen, even the aging fiancee Johnny left behind when he pulled his disappearing act all fit together in a macabre backdrop of New York painted with hell's own blackened and scorched blood.
It's sordid. It's violent. It's sexual. It's perverse and unnatural, and the twist at the end smacks you in the face so hard and yet so logically that you'll curse yourself for not seeing it coming because the clues were there all along. Hjortsberg hung his hook out in plain sight, and you along with Angel run headlong into it, not realizing until it's too late.
Detective novels really aren't my thing, but I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of the literary cesspool this story dragged me through. Even if you can't stand noir fiction, even if horror really isn't your thing, this book is something else. If you've got the stomach, you'll tear though it like the blade of a sharp knife through the neck of a thrashing chicken.
You may need a shower when it's over, but dear God is it worth the mess.