The black statue

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The black statue , also published under the title The Ripper of Chicago , is a crime novel by the American writer Fredric Brown . It first appeared in 1949 under the original title The Screaming Mimi .

action

The seedy journalist Sweeney happens to be an eyewitness as a dancer named Yolanda Lang collapses in the hallway of a multi-story apartment building in Chicago covered in blood. It is immediately suspected that she is the third victim of the so-called ripper who has been bullying Chicago for some time and who is wanted by the police. Yolanda, whose white dress was soaked in blood in the attack, survives and is hospitalized. A few days later she is already performing again in a club. Sweeney is interested in the case and investigates. He meets her manager Doc Greene, who has been suspected of being a ripper by the police several times. However, he always had an alibi.

Another lane leads to an antique shop. One of the Ripper victims had worked there. Sweeney finds out that shortly before the murder, the murdered woman must have sold a figure to the murderer, which was given the name "The Screaming One" by its creator. The owner of the store has a second statue that he sells to Sweeney. The journalist inquires and learns that only two statues have been delivered to Chicago: his and that of the murderer. This could clearly convict the perpetrator. Further research reveals that similar ripper murders occurred in Brampton, another town. But this ripper is dead, as Sweeney learns on site. He was shot by the brother of a victim, who is precisely the artist who made “the screaming one”. A conversation with the strange and seedy man named Wilson, who lives in a barn, reveals that his sister Bessie survived the Ripper's attack but has been nervous ever since.

Back in Chicago, Sweeney teased the ripper with a newspaper report. But before this appears, it is known that the ripper has been caught. It is apparently about Doc Greene, who fell out of the window in a fight with Yolanda Lang, with the statue of "the screaming one" in hand. Sweeney still distrusts the matter and is looking for Yolanda Lang. She stayed in a cheap hotel with a black wig. Now Sweeney realizes that Yolanda is actually Bessie Wilson, the victim of the Brampton Ripper who suffered psychological shock in the act. When she saw the statue of her brother, however, because of her disturbance, she no longer identified with the victim, but with the perpetrator and in this way killed two women. Doc Greene was actually a psychiatrist trying to protect her and who she pushed out the window in a fight.

German edition

The ripper of Chicago . Erich Pabel Verlag GmbH & Co KG, Taschenbuch 180, 1965, translation: Gudrun Voigt. The black statue . Diogenes Verlag, 1992. New edition under other titles.

Film adaptations

  • Die blonde Venus , ( The Screaming Mimi ), directed by Gerd Oswald , with Philip Carey as Sweeney and Anita Ekberg as Yolanda. USA 1958.
  • The Secret of the Black Gloves (L'uccello dalle piume di cristallo), written and directed by Dario Argento . Italy / Federal Republic of Germany 1969. The parallels in Argento's film are obvious, but the name Fredric Brown and the novel is nowhere mentioned in the opening credits, closing credits or on the posters.