Elliott Chaze

Gold Medal books weren't books that won literary awards, or any kind of awards at all. But during the 1950s Gold Medal put out some of the best writers America had to offer, writers like Jim Thompson, Chester Himes, and David Goodis, who not only peered into the bleakest reaches of the psyche, but did it with blood-tinged glee. And while many of the Gold Medal pulps have since become acknowledged classics, one of its finest, Elliott Chaze'sBlack Wings Has My Angel, has remained in the shadows, passed along from reader to reader despite being championed by the likes of Ed Gorman and Bill Pronzini. Yet from the very first pages it's clear thatBlack Wings Has My Angel ranks with the best of the era. When Tim Sundblade escapes from prison, his sole possession is an infallible plan for the ultimate heist. Only trouble is its a two-person job. So when he meets Virginia, a curiously well-spoken "ten-dollar tramp," and discovers that the only thing that she has a passion for is "drifts of money, lumps of it," he knows he's found his partner as well as his match. There's no telling whether this lavender-eyed angel will be Sunblade's making or his damnation. To read Chaze's novel is to be taken on a roadtrip filled with hairpin turns and wild reversals, to careen through the darkest landscapes of desperate passion. It is a trip never to be forgotten.

Black Wings Has My Angel

He said it as if it was brand new, as if it sizzled against his teeth. And maybe it did

Peeking, as a cultural instrument, must have come into its own with invention of the lacework balcony. This not only affords the aforementioned screen for the observer, but allows him such a variety of metal frames for the object of observation as to keep the game fresh

Black Wings Has My Angel quotes

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