The Black Angel (novel)

The sister, Jerry Wheeler, is a New York stripper who tries to save her younger brother from being executed after he is found guilty of killing singer Ruby Rose.

Now, when she learns that Chick is ready to desert kindly Mary Allen and run off with a gold-digging floozy, her motherly instincts are aroused and she becomes aggressively protective.

At the trial, the testimonies from Ruby's maid Mandy Leroy and the doorman Charlie Baker seal Chick's conviction.

The lawyer's fees force Jerry to move to a cheaper apartment, a seedy dive she has rented under her old stage name, Honey Sebastian.

After several weeks of working there, she lures Militis out of town with a bogus telegram, and breaks into his apartment to search for concrete evidence.

[2] In 1937, Columbia purchased the rights to "Face Work" and released it as Convicted in 1938, a low-budget crime film which starred Rita Hayworth and Charles Quigley.

[3] Twelve years later, it was aired as "Angel Face" on radio's famous Suspense series (May 18, 1950) with Claire Trevor as the good-hearted stripper who tries to save her brother from being convicted of a murder.

[4] In Laura Lippman’s introduction to “The Dames” in Otto Penzler’s The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps, she writes that even though “the pulps of the early-twentieth century will never be mistaken for proto-feminist documents… there is just enough kink in these archetypes of girlfriend/hussy/sociopath to hint at broader possibilities for the female of the species.” Taking into account of a number of notable dames in pulps by Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, and Randolph Barr, Lippman argues “the most dynamic female in these stories is the avenging angel in Cornell Woolrich’s “Angel Face.” Although she requires a timely rescue in the end, her resourcefulness and bravery are beyond question.

But, as she tells us in the story's first paragraph when she refers to her makeup as war pant, she's being quite literal.” [5] “I had on my best hat and warpaint when I dug into her bell.

You’ve heard make-up called that a thousand times, but this is one time it rated it; it was just that – warpaint.” [6] On the Classic Mystery and Detective homepage, designer and editor Michael E. Grost also points out Woolrich's use of women heroines, especially in "Face Work.” Usually these women are in hard-boiled professions and they get into tough situations where they have to protect a naive younger brother or sister.

The novel follows the story of a woman's desperate attempt to prove her husband's innocence after he has been sentenced to death for the murder of his mistress.

Twenty-two-year-old Alberta Murray first suspects her husband of infidelity when he stops calling her by her pet name “Angel Face.” After other evidence confirms her suspicions, she visits her rival, Mia Mercer, and finds her dead amid the material splendor of a luxury apartment.

The second, with a single M, she discovers lodged in the door seal and realizes that the murderer must have put it there to enable himself to sneak back into her apartment.

The fourth name on the list is club owner Jerome J. McKee – he falls in love with her too, and she takes advantage of their intimacy to ransack his safe, hoping to find incriminating evidence for the murder of Mia Mercer.

[10] Its plot follows Cathy Bennett, whose husband is convicted of the murder of singer Mavis Marlowe (who was his mistress), sets out to find the real killer.

Cathy, assisted by Marlow's husband, Marty Blair, follows up the clue of a monogrammed matchbook to nightclub owner Marko in a quest to find the killer.

But the real killer turns out to be Marty Blair, although he only becomes aware of this late in the film, as the murder was carried out during a drunken binge.

Furthermore, Marty Blair murders his wife (Mavis Marlowe) in an incoherent state of "alcoholic amnesia", unlike Ladd who killed Mia Mercer deliberately while in full control of his faculties.

Ladd reacts by attacking Alberta Murray (the Black Angel in the novel) before committing suicide; Marty, less vengeful, forfeits his reclamation and reverts to his alcoholic benders.