Alberta Murray is convinced her husband is having an affair. Imagine her shock when her husband is arrested for his mistress's murder! Alberta happened upon the crime scene before the police and the only clue is a matchbook with the letter M embossed on the cover. She pilfers the victim's address book and starts going down the M's one by one. Can she find the killer before her husband is executed?My problems with this book started with the premise. If a woman found out her husband was cheating on her and the police thought he killed his mistress, would she go to such great lengths to clear him? Somehow I doubt it. I know I wouldn't in her place. Despite my initial misgivings, I liked the story. Alberta went up against some interesting characters: the mistress's ex husband who had degenerated to a drunk in the Bowery, a drug pusher, a lady's man, and a gangster. Too bad the story dragged on a bit. If it would have been 150 pages, it would have been perfect. Instead, it felt bloated.The ending was a little on the weak side. After the Bride Wore Black, I was hoping Woolrich would sucker punch me with the revelation that the husband did it all along and Alberta had gone through hell for nothing. The ending wasn't bad but wasn't as good as I was hoping for. After three of his books, I'm convinced Woolrich was a misogynist. All of his female characters are either whores, psychopaths, or doormats. I'm giving this a 2.5. It was on the good side of okay but I didn't really think it was a good book.
I felt like this was a fairly weak effort from Woolrich. I've taken to giving him a pass on the absurdity of his plots. This one is more than a tad difficult simply from the motivation of the protagonist. Keeping in mind that this was the early 40s, I'm still not sure I buy it. Again we have heavy coincidence and far-fetched plotting, a Woolrich hallmark. And again the episodic chapter nature of the writing. Generally that is more than made up for in the actual writing and the palpable suspense that Woolrich weaves. However, this time around it just seemed like I'd seen it before and the book never owned me at any point. I'm still pondering the denoument twist. It certainly didn't save the novel. I'm just trying to decide if it works properly with the motivation of the protagonist. So, at least Woolrich succeeded in making me think about the work.
Woolrich was a prolific writer in the 40s of noir pulp fiction. Many of his stories were adapted for radio during the heyday of radio drama, as well as noir films of the 40s (Rear Window was based on one of his short stories). Black Angel is the first of his novels I've read but from what I've read of his other novels, it follows the same pattern. A woman whose husband has been accused of murder determines on her own to find out who is the real killer. She embarks on a private investigative jour
—Jeffrey
Viso d'angeloE' così che Kirk apostrofa amorevolmente la mogliettina Alberta nell'intimità, viso d'angelo. Quando Kirk viene ingiustamente accusato dell'omicidio della sua amante, Mia, Alberta gli perdona anche il tradimento e fa di tutto per scoprire il vero assassino. Incurante degli ambienti in cui deve intrufolarsi e dei compromessi a cui deve scendere, Alberta segue una lista di quattro nomi, quattro uomini candidati al ruolo di assassino.Bellissimo noir d'epoca, Angelo nero è un romanzo godibilissimo, nonostante alcune ingenuità. Splendido finale che esegua una maestrale e amarissima virata.
—Roberta
Blackness within darkness, and sequences within sequences, hypnotically Woolrichean. Stunning and amazing, despite a big logic flaw towards the end (why would Alberta investigate the 4th "M" from the victim's address book, once she knew who the monogramed matches belonged to? Makes no sense). But other than that, cool weird interestingness and strangely moving depth. Did I mention the narrative is 1st person from a female's perspective? Awesome. As far as I can tell, this is extremely unusual for pulp crime from 1943. Even Highsmith, the one significant lady crime writer of the mid century era, almost always wrote about men.
—Carla Remy
