Falling Angel

"A terrific book-what might have happened if Raymond Chandler had written The Exorcist."-Stephen King "Falling Angel combines the best of the classic detective story . . . with elements of the occult with surprising humor and wit. . . . This is the literary love-child of Raymond Chandler and Stephen King. . . . Not for the faint-of-heart."-from the foreword by Ridley ScottHjortsberg's Edgar Award-nominated classic about the hunt for a vanished singer that leads a detective into the depths of the occult Big-band frontman Johnny Favorite was singing for the troops when a Luftwaffe fighter squadron strafed the bandstand, killing the crowd and leaving the singer near death. The army returned him to a private hospital in upstate New York, leaving him to live out his days as a vegetable while the world forgot him. But Louis Cyphre never forgets. Cyphre had a contract with the singer, stipulating payment upon Johnny's death-payment that will be denied as long as Johnny clings to life. When Cyphre hires private investigator Harry Angel to find Johnny at the hospital, Angel learns that the singer has disappeared. It is no ordinary missing-person's case. Everyone he questions dies soon after, as Angel's investigation ensnares him in a bizarre tangle of black magic, carnival freaks, and grisly voodoo. When the sinister Louis Cyphre begins appearing in Angel's dreams, the detective fears for his life, his sanity, and his soul.