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The Devil's Daughter
Lion Books No. 16
Orig publication 1942, reprinted by Lion 1949
Orig publication 1942, reprinted by Lion 1949
Paperback
Published January 1, 1949
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October 31, 2024
The Devil’s Daughter (1942; Lion # 16) is a tremendous tour-de-force that is really a crime fiction story told backwards. Most of the events that are the focus of the story have already happened and are related in an apartment above the world’s foremost nightclub, The Ecuador. Laura is a mysterious woman who appears at the nightclub night after night, puzzling Michel Perry, the club owner and arbiter supreme of the night life in New York. Michel inquires who the mysterious Laura is and whether she is a Hollywood wanna-be starlet, arriving as she does with the fat boy from Hollywood. When Michel introduces himself and asks where they have known each other before, Laura but laughs and says he has known some other her in some other existence, some other life, some other plane. But once in his apartment, he reveals to her about the special periscope viewing tubes in the floor from which he can view the action in every spot in the club, even those thought to be most private. He also has listening devices at every table and there is nothing in the club that escapes his notice. What a great setup! And one that has occupied Michel for the last six months when he chose never to leave the building – not once.
Michel is not so sure he had ever known Laura before, but thinks she is a gift from the gods and goddesses of love. Had such a gift come his way before, he knows he would have remembered. Laura, too, has been waiting ten long years to meet Michel Perry. He tells her that, before he had the club, there were eight men who ran the liquor racket in town, all rich men, and now he was the only one left with the others all deceased. Some were murdered. Some died accidentally. Some naturally. And, he says, his turn must be next.
And then the past is revealed as Michel is revealed to be Michael Peruzzi and the woman, the exotic Laura, is revealed to have been the pimply teenager Maria Buonarotti, who had been married to the leader of the bootlegging operation, Joe Brown, and whose lieutenants had been Ralph Bandinelli, Peter Tribolo, Frank Connors, Bennel Stein, Jack Sandro, Mike Peruzzi, and Henry Amblate.
Laura, or Maria as she used to be known, then tells Michel her story, about how she had plastic surgeons redo her face so that the murderers of her husband would not know her. She says she is Sicani and that the first law of the Sicani is the blood law- murder must be avenged. She had no one bumped off, she insists, and everything that was necessary, she did herself.
So begins her tale and Maria (as she was really known) tells chapter by chapter how she alone, as a mistress of disguises, wormed her way into each of these men’s lives and, when they were least expecting, did what was necessary by poison, by bullet, or by knife. Each chapter thus is a mini-crime story of its own that could have been an entire novel.
It is true, she insists, that Michel is the seventh man, but she could never do anything to him. Michel barely believes her and insists that she is torturing him by telling him these tales instead of reassuring him. Michel even rips the mirrors from the walls because he does not want to see her slip a knife between his ribs, give him a poisoned drink, or shoot his guts out. This tension between the two main characters of trust and fear plays out throughout the novel as Maria relates her tales of vengeance, Michel declares he cannot live with her or without her, but he could not imagine ever overcoming his fear that some day she would kill him.
Unusual in presentation, The Devil’s Daughter, offers a story about trust, about revenge, and about desire. All three emotions are wrapped up here in one package.
Michel is not so sure he had ever known Laura before, but thinks she is a gift from the gods and goddesses of love. Had such a gift come his way before, he knows he would have remembered. Laura, too, has been waiting ten long years to meet Michel Perry. He tells her that, before he had the club, there were eight men who ran the liquor racket in town, all rich men, and now he was the only one left with the others all deceased. Some were murdered. Some died accidentally. Some naturally. And, he says, his turn must be next.
And then the past is revealed as Michel is revealed to be Michael Peruzzi and the woman, the exotic Laura, is revealed to have been the pimply teenager Maria Buonarotti, who had been married to the leader of the bootlegging operation, Joe Brown, and whose lieutenants had been Ralph Bandinelli, Peter Tribolo, Frank Connors, Bennel Stein, Jack Sandro, Mike Peruzzi, and Henry Amblate.
Laura, or Maria as she used to be known, then tells Michel her story, about how she had plastic surgeons redo her face so that the murderers of her husband would not know her. She says she is Sicani and that the first law of the Sicani is the blood law- murder must be avenged. She had no one bumped off, she insists, and everything that was necessary, she did herself.
So begins her tale and Maria (as she was really known) tells chapter by chapter how she alone, as a mistress of disguises, wormed her way into each of these men’s lives and, when they were least expecting, did what was necessary by poison, by bullet, or by knife. Each chapter thus is a mini-crime story of its own that could have been an entire novel.
It is true, she insists, that Michel is the seventh man, but she could never do anything to him. Michel barely believes her and insists that she is torturing him by telling him these tales instead of reassuring him. Michel even rips the mirrors from the walls because he does not want to see her slip a knife between his ribs, give him a poisoned drink, or shoot his guts out. This tension between the two main characters of trust and fear plays out throughout the novel as Maria relates her tales of vengeance, Michel declares he cannot live with her or without her, but he could not imagine ever overcoming his fear that some day she would kill him.
Unusual in presentation, The Devil’s Daughter, offers a story about trust, about revenge, and about desire. All three emotions are wrapped up here in one package.
Displaying 1 of 1 review