The Black Angel (novel)

The Black Angel is a 1943 novel by Cornell Woolrich, which was based on two of his own short stories, Murder in Wax and Face Work (later reissued under the titled Angel Face. Woolrich had reworked many of his short stories into full-length novels, including Black Angel.

“Murder In Wax” was first published in the pulp magazine Dime Detective in March 1935, a short story in which a man’s mistress is murdered, right before he is about to leave his wife for her. After he is arrested and sentenced to death, the story is narrated by the condemned man’s wife as she searches for the killer. The twist in this story is that after she seemingly cornered the murderer, she is revealed to be the killer.

Two years later, Woolrich reworked this story again in “Face Work,” published in Black Mask in October 1937, although the story was later reissued under the title “Angel Face.” The characters were changed from husband and wife to brother and sister. The sister, Jerry Wheeler, is a New York stripper who tries to save her younger brother from being executed after he is found guilty of killing singer Ruby Rose. The achieve this, Wheeler has to insinuate herself into the life and affections of a sadistic nightclub owner.

Jerry Wheeler, 27, has been dancing in nightclubs to support herself and her brother ever since she was 16. Now, when she learns that Chick is ready to desert kindly Mary Allen and run off with a gold-digging floozy, her motherly instincts are aroused and she becomes aggressively protective. She visits Ruby Rose Reading, but can't convince her or Chick to sever the relationship. Later that night, Ruby is found dead and police arrest Chick as the primes suspect. At the trial, the testimonies form Ruby’s maid Mandy Leroy and the doorman Charlie Baker seal Chick’s conviction. The lawyer’s fees force Jerry to move to a cheaper apartment, a seedy dive she has rented under her old stage name, Honey Sebastian. Detective Nick Burns volunteers to help her find evidence that can reopen the trial and exonerate Chick. He calls her Angel Face, a term of endearment that indicates his romantic attraction to her.

Jerry comes across Ruby’s jewelry case, and inside the box she discovers a secret compartment containing a letter written by notorious gangster Milton Militis in which he threatens Ruby for cheating on him. To wangle her way closer to Militis, Jerry auditions at one of his nightclubs, Hell’s Bells. After several weeks of working there, she lures Militis out of town with a bogus telegram, and breaks into his apartment to search for concrete evidence. Militis returns too soon, and thinks she has finally consented to being his girl, however one of his henchmen, Rocco, exposes Jerry’s identity.

...
Wikipedia