About This Book
With the swinging tempo of the big band era as its backdrop, And The Angels Sing tells the parallel stories of an up-and-coming young singer named Marion Haines and popular big band trumpeter, Teddy Williams. Neither knows the other, but like two freight trains converging on the same track, Marion and Teddy are destined to meet head-on in a collision that puts their strength and courage to the ultimate test.
On a quest to realize her dream of becoming a big band singer, Marion moves from her family home in Wyoming to the bright lights of southern California. After a long and frustrating search Marion finally lands a singing job with over-the-hill band leader Buddy Baldwin.
Marion has talentâ€"lots of talentâ€"and she proves it performing with Baldwin's band at the Playa del Mar, a small Long Beach supper club. With newspaper entertainment editors singing her praises and nightly crowds filling the club to capacity, the Playa del Mar's owner, Johnny Angelino, takes a personal interest in Marion with more on his mind than helping her career. Marion naively accepts Angelino's help, unaware of his ulterior motives, and more importantly, his ties to notorious mobster, Bugsy Siegel.
She learns to terrifying truth about her benefactor when, in the wrong place at the wrong time, Marion overhears a conversation between Angelino and Siegel that could send Bugsy to the electric chair. Her fate sealed, Siegel orders Angelino to take Marion for a ride. While waiting for Angelino to carry out Bugsy's orders, Marion succeeds at a daring escape attempt and hides out on Santa Catalina Island, where her older brother manages the Avalon Casino's ballroom.
At the same time, Bobby Ross, the number one bandleader in the country and Teddy Williams' employer, wraps up a record-breaking engagement at New York's Paramount Theater and sets off on a cross-country tour that ultimately takes Teddy to the Avalon Casino. That's where he meets Marion and finds himself embroiled in her flight from Siegel and the mob. The chances of them surviving Siegel's insane obsession with killing Marion depend entirely on their ability to outwit Bugsy's henchmen and on the street savvy of an aging homicide cop.
