In the two decades between 1940 and 1960 Cornell Woolrich published 16 crime or weird novels, with the quality great tapering off, by common consensus, in the second decade. These are:
The Bride Wore Black 1940
The Black Curtain 1941
Black Alibi 1942
Phantom Lady 1942 as William Irish
The Black Angel 1943
The Black Path of Fear 1944
Deadline at Dawn 1944 as William Irish
Night Has a Thousand Eyes 1945 as George Hopley
Waltz into Darkness 1947 as William Irish
Rendezvous in Black 1948I Married a Dead Man 1948 as William Irish
Savage Bride 1950
Fright 1950 as George Hopley
Strangler's Serenade 1951
Death Is My Dancing Partner 1959
The Doom Stone 1960 (episodic novel)
What are your favorites? I know it's unoriginal, but I still go with The Bride Wore Black as my favorite, it's just such a fine, hard crystalline sacrificial dagger of a book.I need to reread it, but I think the fantastical, fatalistic Night Has a Thousand Eyes runs it close. For tensity I've always loved the "vanished woman" case Phantom Lady and the serial killer novel Black Alibi, which is, I think, the scariest novel he ever wrote. I think I'll round my personal list out with Deadline at Dawn, though Waltz into Darkness is quite interesting. I'm one of those people whom the ending of I Married a Dead Man really bugged the hell out of!
Let me know yours, I'd like to collect some data on this.



No comments:
Post a Comment