Nobody's Angel

by Jack Clark

Overview

TWO KILLERS STALK THE STREETS OF CHICAGO – CAN ONE TAXI DRIVER CORNER THEM BOTH?

Eddie Miles is one of a dying breed: a Windy City hack who knows every street and back alley of his beloved city and takes its recent descent into violence personally. But what can one driver do about a killer targeting streetwalkers or another terrorizing cabbies? Precious little – until the night he witnesses one of them in action…

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780857683502
Publisher:	Titan
Publication date:	03/29/2011
Series:	Hard Case Crime
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	4.10(w) x 6.70(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Jack Clark was nominated for the Shamus Award for his novel starring private eye Nick Acropolis, Westerfield’s Chain. Nobody’s Angel, the author's first novel, was originally self-published in an edition of only 500 copies that the author sold for five dollars apiece to passengers in the Chicago taxi he drove for a living.

Editorial Reviews

…Nobody's Angel is a gem. For what it is, it's just about perfect. I won't urge would-be novelists to forsake their writing classes and become hackers, but they would do well to read Clark's story, which doesn't contain a wasted word or a false note…[the] crimes add suspense and realism to the novel, but its real beauty lies in Eddie's bittersweet existence and the special romance and danger of the cabdriver's life—lives we often glimpse but rarely give a second thought.
—The Washington Post

Patrick Anderson

Clark (Westerfield's Chain) originally self-published this slim, sparse, and heartbreaking novel, selling it to passengers in his Chicago taxicab, and apparently autobiographical elements add poignant realism at the cost of emotional resolution. Eddie Miles is shaken when fellow nighttime cabbie Lenny Smigelkowski falls victim to a serial killer. Eddie also discovers Relita, a teen prostitute brutally mutilated and abandoned in an alley. As Eddie mourns Lenny's death and Relita's pain and tries to find their assailants, he ponders other losses: his father's real estate investments; the innocence of young women entering prostitution; Eddie's daughter, now in his ex-wife's custody; and his faith in humanity as his fares try to abuse, intimidate, and rob him. Little gems of hope sparkle throughout the gloom, but the bleak conclusion of Eddie's “long trip to nowhere” leaves him and the reader mired in despair. (June)

Publishers Weekly