ANGEL HEART

Von William Hjortsberg

Der Privatdetektiv Harry Angel wird von dem mysteriösen Louis Cyphre beauftragt, den einst so erfolgreichen Schlagersänger Johnny Favorite zu suchen. Angel ahnt nicht, dass er einem Teufelsbetrug mit schrecklichen Konsequenzen auf der Spur ist. Kaum hat er die Suche nach dem Verschwundenen aufgenommen, da wird er mit makabren Ritualmorden konfrontiert. Harry Angel verfängt sich immer tiefer in jenem unheimlichen Labyrinth, das fantastische Anhänger von Dämonenglauben, Teufelskult und Schwarzer Magie für ihn inszeniert haben...

"Erschreckend... als hätte Raymond Chandler DER EXORZIST geschrieben. Ich habe so etwas noch nicht gelesen."
- Stephen King

Der Roman Angel Heart von William Hjortsberg (* 23. Februar 1941 in New York City, New York; † 22. April 2017 in Livingston, Montana) wurde in den USA erstmals im Jahre 1978 veröffentlicht und gilt als erfolgreichstes Werk des Autors. 1987 wurde der Roman von Alan Parker verfilmt – mit Mickey Rourke als Harry Angel, Robert De Niro als Louis Cyphre, Lisa Bonet als Epiphany Proudfoot und Charlotte Rampling als Margaret Krusemark; der Film und seine literarische Vorlage gelten heute als Klassiker des Noir-Horror.
Der Apex-Verlag veröffentlicht eine durchgesehene Neu-Ausgabe von Angel Heart in seiner Reihe APEX HORROR – ergänzt um ein Produktionstagebuch von Regisseur Alan Parker.

• Sprache: Deutsch
• Herausgeber: BookRix
• Erscheinungsdatum: 22. Nov. 2018
• ISBN: 9783743887107

William Hjortsberg

William Hjortsberg (1941–2017) was an acclaimed author of novels and screenplays. Born in New York City, Hjortsberg’s first success came with Alp (1969), an offbeat story of an Alpine skiing village, which Hjortsberg’s friend Thomas McGuane called, “quite possibly the finest comic novel written in America.” In the 1970s, Hjortsberg wrote two science fiction novels, Gray Matters (1971) and Symbiography (1973), as well as Toro! Toro! Toro! (1974), a comic jab at the macho world of bullfighting. His best-known work is Falling Angel (1978), a hard-boiled occult mystery. In 1987 the book was adapted into a film titled Angel Heart, which starred Robert De Niro and Mickey Rourke. Hjortsberg’s work also includes Jubilee Hitchhiker (2012), a biography of Richard Brautigan, American writer and voice of 1960s counterculture.  

Rezensionen für ANGEL HEART

[ellemir-1 · Bewertung: 3 von 5 Sternen]

A great mixture between a private investigator story (think Raymond Chandler) and a horror novel. Unfortunately I read it after watching the movie (which is also great, but different in some aspects), which is almost always a bad idea since it replaces the pictures in your mind with those of the movie.
Of course the ending is not unexpected - there are so many clues in the book. But that does not really matter, as the tension comes from on the cat-and-mouse game between Louis Cyphre and Harry Angel, the other mysterious characters and their role in the story and the setting itself, a dark and sinister version of New York in the 50s.
A good read for fans of both genres.

[kattermole · Bewertung: 4 von 5 Sternen]

This isn't particularly something I would normally pick up, hard boiled detective fiction, but a friend recommended it, I finally found a copy so, I read it. It was unputdownable. (Is that really a word?) I did guess, more or less, who dun it, about half way through the book, but not how, or why. I liked the language. "His voice was as oily as that greasy kids stuff...", though younger readers might not get all of the allusions. I loved the setting, 1950s New York which is almost another character. There are characters who practice black magic, white magic , Voodoo, you name it. You could argue though, that nothing supernatural actually happens, despite what some of the characters believe. There are lots of murders, each one more gruesome than the last. I advise you to read this with a towel wrapped around the book, because you don't want blood spilling out all over your nice clean clothes. And I still haven't worked out why Cyphre hired Harry Angel in the first place. Maybe that will become clear next time I read it.

[mrs_mcgreevy · Bewertung: 4 von 5 Sternen]

William Hjortsberg's Falling Angel was the basis for the movie Angel Heart, and, Mickey Rourke notwithstanding, it's a mighty fine adaptation. Even if you've seen the movie, the book is well worth a read, but those of you who haven't seen the movie are in for a special treat.

Falling Angel tells the story of Harry Angel: a P.I. hired by a mysterious stranger to find out the whereabouts of 1940's crooner Johnny Favorite. What seems fairly straightforward at first glance becomes more and more complicated as the investigation continues. Soon bodies start appearing and it looks like our man Angel is being set up to take the fall. Every new piece of the puzzle he finds reveals just how much of the story he hasn't been told. The investigation takes many unexpected turns and eventually Harry ends up involved with blues musicians, fake swamis, voodoo priestesses and a satanic cult.

Although the story is chock full of supernatural elements, the style is completely a hard-boiled detective story of the Hammett/Chandler/Cain era. It's a nice juxtaposition of style and content. The noir detective tends toward the cynical anyway, so Angel's disbelief in the occult occurrences rings true. The crime novels from that era deal with all kinds of conspiracies and chicanery, but everything is fully grounded in reality. There's always a reason, a human reason, for all the trouble that occurs. It's a treat to take that same style and those same assumptions and look at them all from a different angle.

Hjortsberg does an excellent job in keeping the reader guessing as the plot unfolds. Just when you think you know what's going to happen (or what just happened), the story slips away from your grasp. Hjortsberg plays us just as subtly and just as thoroughly as his characters play one another. Up until the final revelations, you're never quite sure just how it's all going to turn out.

And now for the bad news: those of you who've seen Angel Heart know the surprise that Hjortsberg has in store for the reader. Knowing how it all turns out before you get there is a real bitch. While this doesn't invalidate the story, it does mean that you get thwacked in the forehead with foreshadowing every other paragraph or so. This was incredibly disappointing to me the first time I read Falling Angel. I was actually angry at the movie for being too good of an adaptation and therefore spoiling a mighty fine read. But you know what? If the worst thing you can say about a book is that someone made a pretty good movie out of it, then that's probably a pretty safe recommendation.

[jselliott-1 · Bewertung: 5 von 5 Sternen]

This novel is a brilliant piece of crime fiction and very postmodern in its exploration of the split self. While I already knew the 'twist' going into it—which I shan't reveal, if you're not familiar with this novel and the film version Angel Heart—the effect it had on my faith in the traditional detective-as-narrator was certainly challenged. My complicity, less so, but that's a story for another place!

Also, how can you go wrong with a late 1950s New York City setting, voodoo, satanism, gumshoe detectives, witty one-liners and bumbling police?

[altheaann · Bewertung: 3 von 5 Sternen]

This is the book that the movie 'Angel Heart' was based on. Now, I liked Angel Heart a lot when it came out - but that was quite a while ago. So I didn't remember all the details - but I did keep thinking the story sounded really familiar. (Like, I couldn't understand why the reviews/blurbs all said it was 'strikingly original', etc). ;-)
There are definitely some differences - the book takes place solely in New York City, not in New Orleans, for example.
It's very much a noir/mystery, a story of a private detective hired to search for a missing once-was pop singer, with a horror element that only becomes clear at the end. It's well-done - got a good emotional impact - but in order for it to make SENSE, you've really just got to say, "well, I guess satan, I mean, Louis Cypher, hahaha, does inexplicable things for no good reason other than that he is evil."

[thecrow2 · Bewertung: 5 von 5 Sternen]

A great story of Harry Angel private eye whose invertigation turns into a supernatural horror story. The film aAngel heart is one of my favourites so I was very curious about the book and I wasn't disappointed....

[runner56_1 · Bewertung: 3 von 5 Sternen]

This book was recommended to me on a bookmark called "50 of the best horror novels" and it is technically incorrect as I would not refer to it as horror more crime noir with grizzly undertones. It's the story of Harry Angel, tough New York PI, and his search for Johnny Favorite one time crooner who sang with the Spider Simpson orchestra in the 1940's. What I enjoy about noir crime is not so much the story but the setting, the characters, and the language used. We get to meet Spider Simpson, Evangeline Proudfoot, Madame Zora, Toots Sweet all coming under the suspicious and watchful eye of our great PI Harry Angel! Of course as every Raymond Chandler or Dashiell Hammett fan will know it is always the fast and furious cracking dialogue that makes the story buzz...."She had large breasts and slim hips and emphasized them with a pink angora sweater and a tight black skirt. Her hair was on the brassy side of platinum"..."A million square feet of office space sheathed in embossed aluminium panels. It looked like a forty-story cheese grater."...."She was dressed all in black, like a weekend bohemian in a Village coffeehouse"...." The curtainrod was bent in a V and the drapes sagged like the stockings of a hooker on a weeklong drunk".The story moves at a furious pace and give the impression and smells of downtown NYC in the late 1950's with all its undertones, underlife and seedy jazz clubs.."I found a stool at the bar and ordered a snifter of Remy Martin. The band was playing a blues, the guitar darting in and out of the melody like a hummingbird. The piano throbbed and thundered. Toot's Sweet's left hand was every bit as good as Kenny Pomeroy had promised". Unfortunately, at times, with the introduction of so many characters, the main storyline became a little confused and I sometimes found it necessary to backtrack before continuing. Having said that the effort of completing the story was certainly rewarded with an intelligent and somewhat horrific ending.

[bcquinnsmom · Bewertung: 4 von 5 Sternen]

I'm a huge fan of noir crime fiction, and someone recommended this book as one I'd like in that genre. And sure enough, it held up as a fine noir novel. There's the private detective, Harold Angel, working out of a crappy little office, dressed sloppily, with stains on his tie; places that people wouldn't go to after dark; a private hospital in the country, characters involved in the dark world of voodoo and black magic etc. etc. And Angel's been hired by someone to find a missing singer who's been in said hospital but has disappeared. With only a few leads, he's off. But the closer I came towards the end, the more I realized that there's something just a wee bit off kilter here and then I got the surprise of my life. Talk about plot twist! So I won't spoil the book for others by going into any further detail here, but I will say that if you like a touch of the supernatural in your fiction, then you've got to add this to your reading stack. Very well done.

[molecular-1 · Bewertung: 4 von 5 Sternen]

Chilling

Inspired writing and chilling plot as the PI is hired to find a crooner from the days of swing whose gone missing for fifteen years. Soon the plot thickens with voodoo, Aztec sacrifice and black magic. People our PI, Harry Angel talks to keep dying in sacrificial ways. The book centers around the question will he find this crooner, or be the next to die? The only reason I didn't give it five stars was it was too easy to figure out the ending. I guessed who Cyphre was at the beginning. I know this is a cult book, and I did appreciate all the creepy thrills, but a bit more surprise would have gotten that fifth star. The rest was all there, characters, pacing,imagery, dialogue, and all the rest. The plot was just a bit too transparent. I would recommend for people who like very creepy horror books. It's not that there is a lot of gore, it is a different type of spine-chilling creepy.

[datrappert · Bewertung: 5 von 5 Sternen]

Incredible noir detective story is compelling, disgusting (at least to my wife), and unforgettable. If you haven't had the chance to read it, and better yet, if you have no idea what it is about, just plunge in. Don't read anything on the cover or the internet or anywhere. Just prepare to be enthralled.The book is far superior to the film version, Angel Heart. Maybe somebody should take another shot at it.

[thomaspluck · Bewertung: 5 von 5 Sternen]

rightfully a classic.