Angel’s Inferno by William Hjortsberg

Angel’s Inferno is the long-awaited sequel to William Hjortsberg’s classic novel Falling Angel, which was made into the notorious film Angel Heart starring Mickey Rourke, Lisa Bonet and Robert DeNiro as Lucifer himself. Falling Angel is set in 1950s New York City and Harry Angel, the main protagonist, is a private detective who is hired by the enigmatic Mr. Louis Cyphre to find a man named Johnny Favorite. Apparently, Johnny Favorite made a deal with Mr. Cyphre back in the day and reneged on the deal, then got shot up in WWII and simply vanished. As Harry Angel continues to search for Johnny Favorite, he gets pulled deeper and deeper into a web of voodoo, black magic, Satanism, sex, identity, and murder. If you’ve seen Angel Heart, you know the twist at the end……Harry Angel IS Johnny Favorite and Louis Cyphre is Lucifer, who knew all along that Harry was the man he sought and framed him for several murders. It’s classic gumshoe with a supernatural twist and it’s both an excellent book and great movie.

The end of Falling Angel is different from the film version in that Harry is arrested whereas in Angel Heart, Harry goes to hell to pay up his debt to the Big D. So when the book sequel came out, I was dying to know how Harry makes his escape, which he does in a pretty spectacular fashion. His escape from NYPD’s finest kicks off the book in high gear, as Harry uses his wits, his secret stash of money, his ability to lie and steal, and his instinct for survival to make a run to Paris, where he decides to fully embrace his true identity of Johnny Favorite as he searches for Louis Cyphre to exact revenge on him.

Harry Angel’s acceptance of who he truly is is a turning point, as he begins to exhibit behavior that is foreign to his identity as Harry. He is far less of a sympathetic character in this book, and has no problem in hurting people as long as it furthers his plan to get revenge on Cyphre. He begins a steamy affair with a gorgeous woman named Bijou who is also a Satanist, he becomes well acquainted with William Burroughs, and gets to know an Eastern European religious philosopher called Janos Szabor, who has written a book positing the existence of Satan and which Harry/Johnny uses to find Cyphre. This also takes him to Italy and Vatican City once he discovers a conspiracy involving a secret society made up of 30 evil men throughout the world who identify themselves at a secret conclave with a silver coin. The coins are made from the 30 pieces of silver given to Judas for betraying Jesus Christ. And there are some scenes of Harry/Johnny torturing people to get information, for which you will need to have a strong stomach. I won’t give those away except to say if you don’t enjoy reading about perverts getting fingers cut off one by one or if flaying someone alive isn’t your cup of tea, you might want to skip those scenes.

In addition to simply enjoying the adventure of the book, I greatly appreciated the philosophy of God and the Devil and the questions as to the nature of good and evil. Good and evil tend to be looked as as polar opposites. What is good is good and what is evil is evil. Black and white. However, we as human beings know that nothing is that simple and someone who appears to be a good person can be the most evil individual inside his or her heart. All of us are capable of good and evil. That is the human experience. I’ve often wondered if we, as humans, could see inside of each other, we would have the division and misrepresentation that seems to be ubiquitous nowadays. In the end, it’s a question of identity and how we see ourselves in relation to others. Are we good and they bad? Do they see themselves as good and us as evil? And what do good and evil even mean in a world of liars, cheaters, embezzlers, fraudsters, hucksters and the like? Lots of food for thought, pardon the pun.

Speaking of food, Harry, once he takes on Johnny’s identity, also becomes much more of a lover of all things sensual. He enjoys expensive, custom-made clothing, loves nice hotels with room service, begins taking first-class flights, and best of all, starts to indulge in costly, high-end restaurants with extremely fancy and delicious cuisine. A far cry from his time as a private dick in The Big Apple where he was happy to live on bratwurst, sandwiches, beer and barroom snacks. As he comes closer and closer to finding Cyphre and ultimately becoming Lucifer himself, he finds himself eating luxurious foods such as steak au poivre, beef tenderloin and hearts of palm salad, choucroute, salmon tartare, saltimbocca alla Romana, and my favorite, savory madeleines when he treats Professor Szabor to an elegant and elaborate meal at the famous Paris restaurant La Tour d’Argent.

“Twelve years in Paris,” he said. “Today marks my fifth visit. Poor academics don’t often dine like kings. I am a mendicant monk, dependent on the kindness of occasional benefactors.” The starving professor grabbed two more hors d’oeuvres. Three remained on the tray. I ate a Madeleine stuffed with anchovy filling, leaving the rest for my voracious guest.

The food mentions alone are a gastronomic wet dream and it was very difficult to decide which of those tasty dishes I wanted to recreate, but I settled on savory madeleines because I recently treated myself to a set of madeleine pans and wanted to give them a trial run. I also had some green Castelvetrano olives I needed to use up, so I thought they’d add a nice salty note. Here’s the way I did it, loosely based on the delectable savory madeleine recipe from Jill Dupleix.

INGREDIENTS
A teaspoon of olive oil
1 and 1.5 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
Sea salt and fresh ground pepper to taste
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
3 eggs
1/2 cup grated Gruyere cheese
1 heaping tablespoon green olives, finely chopped
1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt
Zest of one large organic lemon
1 anchovy, finely minced
1 tablespoon dried thyme leaves

METHOD
In a large mixing bowl, sift in the flour and the baking powder, then add in your sea salt and pepper, mix together, then add the paprika and dried thyme.

In another bowl, beat your eggs until frothy and pale, then mix in the cheese, olives, lemon zest, Greek yogurt, olive oil and anchovy.

Gently fold the wet ingredients into the flour mixture, stir to combine, and refrigerate for up to 4 hours. You want your batter very cold when you bake the madeleines.

Heat the oven to 400F and lightly oil your madeleine molds. Spoon the batter into each mold to about 3/4 full.

Bake for 10 minutes. You’ll see the batter puff up and turn a pale gold, and you’ll definitely smell the delicious lemon and paprika.

Remove from the oven and immediately remove each baked madeleine from its mold. Serve warm or room temperature. These are delicious with soup, as a side to a large salad, or with any sort of roast meat or fish. Johnny would definitely make these his Favorites, I think. 🙂