Staff Pick
Imagine that Raymond Chandler had a nephew named Ellliott who hung around Chandler's LA digs, gleaning noir lore from the master. Said nephew then writes his own novel — but instead of having a tarnished knight like Philip Marlowe as the protagonist, he writes about a mercurial prison escapee who's capable of, well, virtually anything. No spoilers here — suffice it to say that Elliott Chaze's dialogue is hard-boiled, sometimes brutal, and often beautiful; the love story's high-octane and dangerous; and nobody goes home happy. Highly recommended! Recommended By Bart K., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
During the 1950s, Gold Medal Books introduced authors like Jim Thompson, Chester Himes, and David Goodis to a mass readership eager for stories of lowlife and sordid crime. Today many of these writers are admired members of the literary canon, but one of the finest of them of all, Elliott Chaze, remains unjustly obscure. Now, for the first time in half a century, Chaze's story of doomed love on the run returns to print in a trade paperback edition.
When Tim Sunblade escapes from prison, his sole possession is an infallible plan for the ultimate heist. Trouble is it's a two-person job. So when he meets Virginia, a curiously well-spoken "ten-dollar tramp," and discovers that the only thing she cares for is "drifts of money, lumps of it," he knows he's met his partner. What he doesn't suspect is that this lavender-eyed angel might just prove to be his match.
Black Wings Has My Angel careens through a landscape of desperate passion and wild reversals. It is a journey you will never forget.