“Flight of an Angel” was Verne Chute’s first novel and probably his best. A well-known short fiction writer, Chute appears to have penned only three crime novels, Flight of an Angel (1946), Wayward Angel (1948), and Sweet and Deadly (1952).

Chute must have been fascinated with Los Angeles’ Angel’s Flight, the world’s shortest railway, a tiny funicular car that served the residents of Los Angeles’ Bunker Hill beginning in 1901 with the civic center and Grand Central Market below until it was dismantled in 1969. The restored railway reopened in 1996 and is now (although not operating currently due to regulatory hurdles) on Bunker Hill.

Both Flight of an Angel and Wayward Angel feature the funicular in the 1940’s and the old Bunker Hill neighborhood on top, which has long since disappeared and been replaced by gleaming office buildings lacking the history and character of the old neighborhood.

Flight of An Angel is a top-notch pulp-era story featuring what became a theme of a number of pulp novels of the forties, fifties, etc. – a man, often with a mysterious criminal past, but who has lost his memory and is clawing his way back. Typically, such novels feature a newly-formed man who has few links to his past, but whose past nevertheless comes back to haunt him.

Flight of An Angel is such a novel and begins with a man who has no idea who he is or what city he is in and slowly, taking baby steps, puts it together, finding his way up the funicular, finding identification cards in his pockets, finding which apartment is his, and more. It is an absolutely fascinating study of putting the puzzle together and, as a reader, you really feel as lost as he is, putting together the steps, wondering who he is, how he got there, and the sheer panic he feels when he meets his wife/girlfriend, and when he shows up at his place of employment and fakes his way through his day.

The story takes place in the midst of World War II and that constitutes a backdrop to much of what takes place as our mysterious amnesiac has to deal with his draft status and his work in a defense plant.

The story takes a sharp pulpy turn as the mystery man’s past catches up with him and he gets involved with rackets, with murder, with strippers, with lotteries, and more. The story is written well and is an easy read. It flows perfectly and keeps a reader’s interest throughout. At no point does the pace ever slow, but seems to deliberately pick up steam as it goes on to its wild conclusion.

As a bonus to us modern readers, Chute does a fantastic job of giving us the Los Angeles and San Francisco of the forties with the streetcars and the bars and hotels.

Gotta give this book the highest recommendation. It’s definitely worth a read. ( )