(pb; 1954)
From the back cover
“When Tim Sunblade escapes
from prison, his sole possession is an infallible plan for the ultimate heist.
Trouble is it’s a two-person job. So when he meets Virginia, a curiously
well-spoken ‘ten-dollar tramp,’ and discovers that the only thing she cares for
is ‘drifts of money, lumps of it,’ he knows he’s met his partner. What he
doesn’t suspect is that this lavender-eyed angel might just prove to be his
match.”
Review
Black Wings, told in the first person from the perspective Kenneth McClure (aka Tim Sunblade), is an immediately immersive, exciting and sometimes violent and flirty read, detailing his adrenaline-spiked criminal run with Virginia, to its darkly humorous and karmic finish. If their trajectories, separate and together, are familiar to pulp/noir fans, it’s not to the detriment of Chaze’s work here: it merely provides the framework in which the character-driven action happens.
Fans of wild-women characters may especially enjoy Black Wings’ Virginia, who reminds me of other iconic noir/pulp femme fatatles: Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck) in Double Indemnity (1944), Vera (Ann Savage) in Detour (1945) and Annie Laurie Starr (Peggy Cummins) in Gun Crazy (1950).
Black is another great entry in the pulp genre, up there with other top tier works in the genre—worth owning.
#
Il gèle en enfer (1990;
English translation: He’s freezing in hell), directed and co-scripted by
Jean-Pierre Mocky, was adapted from Black Wings and released in France on April 25, 1990. Jean-Pierre Mocky played Tim. Lauren Grandt, billed as Laura Grandt,
played Georgia (the cinematic equivalent of Virginia from the source novel).
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