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WINGS HAS MY ANGEL By Elliott Chaze Blackmask Online has made a determined effort to revive out-of-print pulp fiction, digging around in the musty stacks of rotting paperbacks for fictional gold. They struck pay dirt here. Elliott Chaze was a Mississippi writer whose career spanned from the post-war years to the ‘80s. Originally published in 1953, Black Wings Has My Angel is now available from www.blackmaskonline.com (the publication page notes it was nearly reprinted by Black Lizard in 1990). It tells the story of Tim Sunblade, an escaped convict who picks up a call girl with a dark past in a backwoods Mississippi motel. They unite like a pair of scorpions, passionately but fatally. Tim has plans, a scheme dreamed up by a jail-mate to make a massive score. Virginia turns out to be the woman he needs, alternately a stalwart lover and the most unreliable of tramps. Just as much as they need each other, they despise one another. Like all good noir tales (much like real life) success is simply something to be destroyed by the perverse inner demons that drive man. I was hooked from the first page. Tim Sunblade is an anti-hero in classic mold: seemingly without redeeming virtue at first, one can find something in his defiant rebellion against God and man to amaze and awe. The Blackmask edition seems pretty typo-free, which is a consideration here. -Dave Hardy
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