Night and Fear: A Centenary Collection of Stories

by Cornell Woolrich, Francis M. Nevins Jr. (Editor)

Cornell Woolrich published his first novel in 1926, and throughout the next four decades his fiction riveted the reading public with unparalleled mystery, suspense, and horror. America's most popular pulp magazines published hundreds of his stories. Classic films like Hitchcock's Rear Window, Truffaut's The Bride Wore Black, and Tournier's Black Alibi came chillingly to the screen from his work. And novels like Deadline at Dawn, Rendezvous in Black, and Night Has a Thousand Eyes gained him the epithet "father of noir." Now with this new centenary volume of previously uncollected suspense fiction edited by Francis M. Nevins--recipient of the Edgar Allan Poe Award for criticism in the mystery field--a whole new generation of mystery readers, as well as his countless fans who have long loved his work, can thrill to the achievement of Cornell Woolrich, the writer deemed to be the Edgar Allan Poe of the twentieth century.

Genres: Noir, Short Stories, Mystery, Fiction, Crime, Thriller, 20th Century

420 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 1990

About the author

Cornell Woolrich is widely regarded as the twentieth century’s finest writer of pure suspense fiction. The author of numerous classic novels and short stories (many of which were turned into classic films) such as Rear Window, The Bride Wore Black, The Night Has a Thousand Eyes, Waltz Into Darkness, and I Married a Dead Man, Woolrich began his career in the 1920s writing mainstream novels that won him comparisons to F. Scott Fitzgerald. The bulk of his best-known work, however, was written in the field of crime fiction, often appearing serialized in pulp magazines or as paperback novels. Because he was prolific, he found it necessary to publish under multiple pseudonyms, including "William Irish" and "George Hopley" [...] Woolrich lived a life as dark and emotionally tortured as any of his unfortunate characters and died, alone, in a seedy Manhattan hotel room following the amputation of a gangrenous leg. Upon his death, he left a bequest of one million dollars to Columbia University, to fund a scholarship for young writers.

Source: [http://www.hardcasecrime.com/books_bi...]

Reviews

[Carla Remy · Rating 5 out of 5]

12/2012

Phenomenal. I shouldn't have read it as fast as I did. Woolrich is best in his pulp stories; his novels can be uneven.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

Phew! This is one reading experience that I'm glad is over - a book that I should have DNF'd. And I thought about doing that a few times. But I didn't because... I seem to be something of a Woolrich completist (regardless of what name he's published under). 

I was looking forward to this collection. Included in the volume 'The Cornell Woolrich Omnibus' are a handful of short stories which are rather good, rather polished. So the thought of a larger collection of stories appealed to me.

But, early on in the read, enthusiasm took something of a nosedive. 

All but one of the 14 stories here were written before (or right around when) Woolrich published his breakthrough novel, 'The Bride Wore Black'. And now it seems to me that, while writing 'TBWB', it's likely that Woolrich - who had, at that point, been publishing for about 15 years - thought to himself, 'I think I finally know how to do this!' 

~ because 'TBWB' is dynamite stuff. These stories, overall, aren't. 

On some level - esp. for those who are real Woolrich admirers - this collection can hold a certain fascination. In story after story, you will witness the writer honing his craft; you will see the beginnings of what would later make his more-finely-tuned signature novels so compelling. 

But, the read can still, too often, be a frustrating one. Every story is over-written (apparently Woolrich fell upon the value of economy later on). And, even though those of us who love Woolrich's work can take it in stride when he's whimsical with the boundary of what's believable... that same whimsy, here, can stretch to the point of snapping. 

I've given half of the stories higher marks because - as representations of pulp fiction - they're more successful than the other stories (even though they're still a bit problematic; the core stories are fine). But some of the stories are just ok - while some others lean toward being wretched. (At the end of each story there's a sort of laudatory hard-sell by editor Francis M. Nevins.)

For reading pleasure, I can't ultimately say this volume is for Woolrich fans who love him at his best or for his novels. 'Acquired taste' doesn't quite state the case. I'm certainly glad he was able to sell all of these stories after they were written. But, as a collection, it can be a struggle. 

'Cigarette' (1936) ****
'Double Feature' (1936) ***
'The Heavy Sugar' (1937) ****
'Blue is for Bravery' (1937) ***
'You Bet Your Life' (1937) *****
'Death in the Yoshiwara' (1938) ***
'Endicott's Girl' (1938) **** 
'Detective William Brown' (1938) *****
'The Case of the Killer-Diller' (1939) *
'Through a Dead Man's Eye' (1939) ****
'The Fatal Footlights' (1941) *****
'Three Kills for One' (1942) **
'The Death Rose' (1943) *
'New York Blues' (1970) *

[Shawn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read three stories in this Woolrich collection, so my rating only holds in relation to those three.

Two of the three stories I read here can be seen as interesting flips sides of the same coin - Woolrich's specific statements on the police and the concept of "justice".

First up is the excellent "Detective William Brown", an extended character study of two childhood friends who become policemen. The shorthand would be "Goofus and Gallant Become Cops" but "Gallant" ("average" Joe Greely) ends up the plodding, by-the-book type of officer who does the job right and so never advances, while "Goofus" (the titular character, who passed all his classes by cheating on tests and plagiarized his graduation speech) ends up the popular, media-friendly police officer advanced up to Detective when he seems capable of solving any case (even if he has to frame an innocent man and shoot him while the mark is "trying to escape"). Brown is a driven, manipulative sharpie who knows how to game the system but he also holds his own form of courage, interestingly - even though he has no compunction of rolling over *anyone* who gets in his way or finds out about his indiscretions - even an old friend. What's notable about this story (aside from its reinforcement of the central, cynical Woolrich view of a system in which cheater's prosper and policemen who treat their job as a "racket" make advancement) is that Woolrich's cops are not cardboard cartoons existing to make his point, but are a full range of human beings with all their flaws and beliefs. A totally ruthless but honest portrayal of police corruption at the time and the problems inherent in a system where flawed humans are given greater power over their equals. Great stuff (even if the ending is a mite bit trite)! (*there's a funny historical detail in this and a number of other Woolrich's stories - the need to note that an elevator is automatic and "unmanned", marking that transition point between elevator operators and their phasing out*)

On the flip side this coin is "Three Kills For One" - in which an innocent man is mistakenly put to death for the murder of police officer, only for the truth to the emerge, at which point the police make a politically expedient decision to let the real killer go to avoid a scandal - a decision that one detective finds unpalatable. So he resigns from the force and dedicates years of his life to hounding the killer, stalking him and appearing everywhere he does, even following him as he flees cross-country. The story moves out of the sphere of commitment to abstract ideals and into a much more uneasy realm as the tale progresses as the detective even stops the killer from committing suicide. Nevins likes it a bit more than I do - I can see the appeal and its well-done, but it also feels kind of like on of those stories that Woolrich wrote and discovered the correct telling was hampered by the short-story length - but unlike "Speak To Me Of Death"'s transformation into Night Has a Thousand Eyes, or "Street Of Jungle Death"'s transformation into Black Alibi, this story would not have made a very satisfying novel, what with its nearly mundane, if completely appropriate, climax. You can see where the story needs to gloss over the important passage of time that reconfigures the relationship between the two men into something almost like friendship, but this still feels like a gloss, telling us and not showing us the gradual change. And yet, if it had spent the time and shown it to us, the ending as given (even with it's interesting reveal of the real focus of the detective's zeal for justice, and how simple people slip through the cracks in a world based on broad ideals) would probably not have felt worth the length of the trip. Should have been a novella (or a novel version would have had to introduce another character to the dynamic) but still, a good read.

And finally, there is "New York Blues", which Nevins considers the best of late-period Woolrich and I'd have to agree - it's compelling, it condenses a number of Woolrich themes into a simple but heartfelt tale and its got an ending as dark and bleak as "For The Rest Of Her Life". It's a slow-motion gut-punch of a tale - as a nameless man waits in a hotel room, knowing he has done something terrible (which he can't remember exactly) and knowing that punishment will be enacted - can *only* be enacted. It's a both an exemplary example of, and yet also a strange inversion of, Woolrich's "ticking clock" scenarios - our main character considers his situation hopeless, and so he slowly divests himself of memories and money and friends, even as the expected visitors arrive and attempt to affect entrance, even as a desperate escape is tried and fails, even as time begins to dilate down and down, stretching out and out until the awful, inevitable climax and the killer last line that sums it all up and makes you question what you've been reading from the start - events, or memories of events? It's just an incredible story.

[Andy · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 - A mixed bag rounded up to 4 stars mainly due to the spectacular final story.

[Tina Tamman · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have been rationing myself to one story a day and on some days I have managed to limit myself to half a story. Can't read any faster because I have not much more Cornell Woolrich left to read. He is mostly out of print. This is a collection of short stories, just in case you don't know. There are fourteen of them, all clever in some way or another. My favourites are "You bet your life" (two men bet that there is a murderer in all of us), "The case of the killer-diller" (murder hinges on Ravel's Bolero) and "Through a dead man's eye" (a boy wants to solve a murder to ensure dad's promotion), but I liked them all. I think that Cornell Woolrich must have been a brilliant man and I just love his flights of fancy, the way he tells his stories. Just consider that he may make a story centre on a broken button on a man's cuff, a thread that snags on it and this triggers the following events. Just brilliant.
I only wish that Cornell Woolrich's name were better known.
If I have a complaint, it is about the size and shape of the book. It is awkward to hold. And I like holding books.

[Steve Payne · Rating 4 out of 5]

At least half of these 14 stories are very good, and 4 more are fine. Overall this collection is well worth a read if you like pulpy noir short stories - these are among some of the best I've read. The final story, New York Blues is my favourite- about a man who locks himself away in a hotel room and awaits the arrival of the police. Woolrich's plots can be bizarre, but the bucket loads of atmosphere and often oddball cast, as well as the pace of the stories pull you along. Cigarette (a nobody wants to befriend a gangster and is entrusted with murder), The Heavy Sugar (why is a man playing with the sugar bowls in a café?), You Bet Your Life (a man makes a bet that he can get a random person off the street to commit a murder!), Through A Dead Man's Eye (a young boy is disappointed at his cop father's demotion and decides to help), Double Feature (an off duty cop sees a 'Most Wanted' sitting in the cinema) and Death In The Yoshiwara (a man is murdered in a Tokyo house of pleasure!) are my other favourites here.

Can't get enough of this writer. He was certainly a one of a kind.

The fine intro and afterword after each story (by Francis M.Nevins) also add to this recommendation.

[Andy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cornell Woolrich writes better novels than short stories. Even “Rear Window” needed Hitchcock’s touch to make it come alive. The stories in this comp aren’t particularly terrible - they just didn’t make a big impression on me. In fact I just finished the book and can’t remember a single story in it. It seems like Woolrich kept his A-list material for his novels.

[skrawling · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some of the best short pulp noire fiction I have ever read. Cornell Woolrich plays with your emotions like a well tuned instrument. I feel like being tortured on the rack would be less tense than some of his stories. I highly recommend this book.

[Simona Moschini · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sei racconti lunghi uno più bello dell’altro, già pubblicati su riviste pulp americane come la mitica Black Mask tra il 1938 e il 1942, finora inediti in Italia.
Che rivelazione, Woolrich. Uno di quei momenti in cui ne chiudi uno e capisci che dovrai procurarti tutti gli altri, per il semplice fatto che, in mezzo a tanto sterco, qui ne vale la pena. E io non sono una lettrice di racconti, per niente, ma questi sono semplicemente perfetti. Perfetto lo stile, conciso e diretto e spietato; perfetto il ritmo e la diluizione degli eventi; perfetti quindi le accelerazioni e i rallentamenti che ti portano proprio dove vuole l’autore, procurandoti interrogativi e inquietudini insostenibili. Dov’è il bene? Di sicuro non in una centrale di polizia. Dov’è il male? Tendenzialmente dappertutto ce ne sia occasione.
Qui dentro c’è già tutto Ellroy e tutto un filone di cinema noir americano da Vivere e morire a Los Angeles a Eastwood a tanto altro.
Due o tre osservazioni più a fuoco.

La figlia di Endicott
Un racconto in prima persona, un uomo onesto, un poliziotto in gamba, che dapprima non crede ai suoi occhi, ma che quando scopre la verità è pronto a diventare qualsiasi cosa, anche un assassino, pur di coprire la figlia.

Detective William Brown
Il mediocre e il brillante; lo sgobbone e quello che prende sempre le vie traverse. Mai come in questo racconto capirete la differenza tra essere intelligenti ed essere furbi. Ma anche per i furbi può arrivare il momento, quel momento, la resa dei conti. Non che per lo sgobbone cambi qualcosa.

Giallo a tempo di swing.
"Fred Armstrong, il clarinettista del complesso, giaceva inebetito sul letto, la bocca aperta puntata verso il soffitto, la bottiglia di gin che si era portato da sotto ancora stretta in mano, come se fosse troppo preziosa per lasciarla andare anche dopo che si era scolato l’intero contenuto."
Nella strana complicità che si crea tra il poliziotto a cui il naturale indagato sembra troppo colpevole per esserlo davvero e la cantante della band dove ogni tanto qualche membro finisce male, risiede buona parte del fascino di questa storia. L’altra metà è data dalla musica stessa, dal ritmo diabolico dello swing e da quello del bolero che, ossessivamente suonato al pianoforte, farà da deus ex machina.
Da notare che, qui ancor più che altrove, Woolrich non esita a mostrare il sottobosco musicale di provincia in tutte le sue luci ed ombre, droghe e alcol inclusi.

L’occhio del morto
Mai letto niente di così semplice e perfetto allo stesso tempo. Woolrich assume il punto di vista di un bambino, sveglio sì, ma bambino, che ha intuito un certo rallentamento nella carriera del padre, una potenziale caduta in disgrazia, e decide di aiutarlo. Come? Ma perbacco, trovando un assassino. Perché il padre fa il poliziotto... Detto e fatto, dai suoi giochi infantili (lo scambio di oggetti) si convince che un occhio di vetro possa essere collegato a un delitto e – mentre noi pensiamo: sèèèè, figurati, questo è un racconto di fantasie infantili – ricostruisce tutti i passaggi di quell’occhio fino a trovarsi nella più spaventosa delle situazioni.
Quando arriverete alla scena della busta infilata sotto la porta, tirata da entrambi i lati, proverete il più hitchcokiano dei brividi di terrore.

Ribalta fatale
Anche qui, come in Pezzo forte per l’assassino, il mondo scalcinato e rutilante dello spettacolo, con la reazione del manager (perfetta) di fronte alla morte improvvisa – e originalissima - della divetta di turno: "Poi si voltò. 'E la ragazza come sta?' 'E’ morta' disse Benson con voce smorzata, da sotto un braccio, e l’orecchio appoggiato sul torace dorato della ragazza. Il manager restò senza fiato, ma era una reazione di carattere puramente professionale. 'Accidenti, e dove la trovo io una sostituta con così poco preavviso? Cosa diavolo le è successo? Stava benissimo alla matinée!' "

Tre omicidi per uno
"L’uomo se ne andò. Il tenente si girò verso Severn. 'L’omicidio è stato commesso alle dieci. Che razza di alibi è questo?' Severn disse, con quieta rassegnazione: 'L’unico che avevo.'
Forse il migliore, con L’occhio del morto. La giustizia non coincide con la legge. Ma se la giustizia è quella dell’implacabile Rogers, povera America. Tra i due mali, Woolrich non si schiera. Si limita a farci rabbrividire.

[J · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ever since I read his novel I Married a Dead Man in the Library of America collection Crime Novels: American Noir of the 1930s and 40s, I’ve been in love with Cornell Woolrich. Often called the “father of noir” (which is a bit strange as he didn’t originate the genre), Woolrich was quite possibly its best little-known-anymore writer of atmospherics. His plots aren’t always 100% credible, though this is a feature of noir and not a bug. (Even Chandler once remarked he wasn’t sure who killed a character in his first novel The Big Sleep).

Anyway… what atmospherics. Woolrich has an undeniable gift for the race against the clock mechanisms, and some of his strongest writings are stories that focus on just this aspect of the plot. “Three O’Clock” from another collection may be just about the most suspenseful story written. It should rank up there among the best short stories. His most famous story, “Rear Window,” the basis for the Hitchcock film is partly that kind of story. We get the set up and the patient stalking of the murderer, but the narrative really kicks into high gear once the killer is on to our hero’s detective work.

The collection under consideration doesn’t contain any familiar Woolrich stories, the book made up of previously uncollected work drawn from the author’s long association with the pulps. Rather remarkably we end with “New York Blues,” quite possibly the last story ever finished by Woolrich, previously published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine in 1970. It’s classic Woolrich. A taut thriller about a man holed up in a hotel room, waiting for someone to come and get him for a murder. We don’t realize until quite late in the story that it’s the police, so palpable and threatening are these pursuers made out to be. One suspects a mob hit, only to be thrown by the later developments and the twist near the end.

Ah, the twist. While some authors overuse such a device (see O. Henry for the embodiment of this trait), Woolrich sometimes delivers on this and sometimes doesn’t. His irregular track record here keeps us on our toes. Then when he does deliver the twist, it’s hard to predict what it’ll be or how it will shake things out. The final twist in “New York Blues” is so unreal that I almost suspected it was a hallucination.

Because so many of these stories do delve into a panicky, fear-induced almost visionary quality. Characters read bad news on plate glass window fronts and in whistles out in the street. Eyes are everywhere watching them, ears pressed to cheap hotel walls. The paranoiac style is dialed up to eleven but the truism “just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you” is never more true than in a Woolrich special.

A few of the stories are ambitious clunkers. I actually balked on recommending the book to a friend after about four or five stories in due to these. Let me formally revoke the dis-recommnendation. While the opening story, “Cigarette” is a breathless race against time to track down a poisoned smoke, and its follow up, “Double Feature” wrings the tension out of a cold-blooded killer sitting next to a detective’s girlfriend at the theater, the book moves on to “Blue is for Bravery” and “Death in the Yoshiwara.”

These two disappointing numbers star upstanding heroes and suffer for it. It was on the weakness of these two stories specifically that made me worry for my reputation after I’d recommended the collection. Not just weak stories, the plots are ridiculous confections of sock-o action antics driven by superhuman protagonists who ultimately save the day and get the girl. It’s all so rote and commonplace that I worried for the rest of the collection. More clunkers like this and I’d start to wonder if my Woolrich love was misplaced.

Redemption came in a nasty little piece called “You Bet Your Life.” A compulsive gambler named Fredericks taunts the narrator’s friend Trainor into taking an odd bet. The gambler insists that any man can be goaded into murder given the right opportunity. He and Trainor then lay out a thousand bucks a piece on this philosophical speculation. Taking another thousand dollar bill, Fredericks cuts it in half, slips one half to one man (chosen by Trainor from among a crowd) and one half to another. A letter is then sent to each man telling him where he can get the other half of his bill. It’s a neat trick and one week is given to see it to its fruition. Showcasing both Woolrich’s bleak side (one suspects he would have sided with Fredericks in this bet) and his flair for the countdown tale, “You Bet Your Life” is a life saver for the collection.

A couple less than perfect stories mixed in with some real humdingers like “Through the Eye of a Dead Man” (with its child narrator) round out the collection. By the book’s end, I was won over completely, though I fervently pray that someday someone will put together a real collection of greatest hits. Woolrich was immensely prolific (as most good pulp authors were), though his name recognition is slight outside of noir aficionados. His contributions to the field of suspense and crime writing were immense even if they weren’t distilled down into a handy single character a la Sherlock Holmes or Miss Marple. A thick volume showcasing his short story prowess with an accompanying collection of his novels (most are fairly short affairs), much in the way Library of America did for Hammett and Chandler, would go a long way to putting this situation to rights.

Recognized in his lifetime in ways that he wouldn’t be in death (and oddly enough vice versa), Cornell Woolrich is an under-appreciated genius of shadows and pulse-quickeners. Night & Fear may not be the ideal collection, but it is a decent start for anyone looking for satisfying, thrilling reads.

[Bill Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent compilation and one of the better anthologies of Woolrich's work as it shows his work at both its pulpiest: "Double Feature", "Death in the Yoshiwara", etc. and his mostly finely crafted stories: "New York Blues", "Three Kills for One", etc. All of these stories originally appeared in pulp magazines, which, of course, doesn't mean that de facto they are garbage. An anthology of the finest pulp writing from Woolrich's era would stand up favorably with the finest work done in any era, including today.
Francis M. Nevins provides an introduction and a critical afterword for each story. Nevins is the ultimate Woolrich fan and at times he is too gushing for my taste, but generally his comments, collectively, provide a useful critical analysis of this fine writer's work.

[B.V. · Rating 4 out of 5]

He's been called the "Edgar Allan Poe of the 20th century," the "father of noir fiction," "the Hitchcock of the written word," and "our poet of the shadows." It's quite possible more film noir screenplays were adapted from his works than any other crime novelist, including films by Hitchcock, Truffaut and Fassbinder, with many stories also adapted during the 1940s for radio.Yet, when the centennial of his birth rolled around in 2003, few of his works were available in stores in or print, and the date passed with mostly a collective yawn.

Cornell George Hopley-Woolrich, who also wrote under the pseudonyms William Irish and George Hopley, was an eccentric, alcoholic, and a diabetic, who had a leg amputated due to an infection from a too-tight shoe. He was both shy and arrogant, but primarily a loner, who was said to have so few friends he rarely put dedications on his novels, and when he did, they were to things like his Remington Portable typewriter and a hotel room he hated. He was a conflicted homosexual who married briefly as a joke, and ended up living with his mother in a rat-infested Harlem tenement with pimps, prostitutes and criminals, even though they could have afforded better (upon his death, he left a bequest of one million dollars to Columbia University, to fund a scholarship for young writers).

He started out writing romantic fiction imitating F. Scott Fitzgerald, but turned to pulp fiction in 1934 and wrote for magazines like Black Mask, Detective Fiction Weekly and Dime Detective. His golden period came between the years of 1934 to 1948, although he continued to write off and on until his death in 1968. Both his earlier and many of his later works weren't on the same level as the middle output (although he wrote several good later stories for EQMM). Even Francis M. Nevins, Woolrich's literary executor who wrote a critical biography and edited three of the Woolrich short story collections, admitted that "purely on its merits as prose, it's dreadful."

Yet, those middle works included tales like the story "Rear Window" which later became a famous Alfred Hitchcock movie. In the introduction to the Woolrich story collection, Night and Fear, Nevins talks about Woolrich's first crime story, "Death Sits in the Dentist's Chair," which paints a vivid picture of New York City during the Depression, a bizarre murder method (cynanide in a temporary filing), and a race against the clock to save the poisoned protagonist, elements that would become Woolrich hallmarks. Nevins writes "in his tales of 1934-39, Woolrich created, almost from scratch, the builidng blocks of the literature we have come to call noir."

The 14 stories in Night and Fear, published by Otto Penzler in 2004, contain all the elements that came to be associated with Woolrich, including the intense, feverish, irrational nature of his world, and plots often filled with outlandish contrivances and coincidences. But Nevins concludes that "in his most powerful work these are not gaffes but functional elements," and that Woolrich believed "an incomprehensible universe is best reflected in an incomprehensible story." Thus, Woolrich's oft-quoted aphorism, "First you dream, then you die."

In Night and Fear, you'll find stories like "Endicott's Girl," which Woolrich once listed as his personal favorite, about a cop who begins to suspect his beloved teenage daughter is a murderer and covers up the evidence; "Cigarette" where a poison cigarette is passed from person to person; and "New York Blues," which is probably Woolrich's final story, involving the claustrophobic imaginings of a lonely man as he waits for the police in his secluded hotel room for a crime he's not sure he even committed:
It's a woman's scarf; that much I know about it. And that's about all. But whose? Hers? And how did I come by it? How did it get into the side pocket of my jacket, dangling on the outside, when I came in here early Wednesday morning in some sort of traumatic daze, looking for room walls to hide inside of as if they were a folding screen...


It's flimsy stuff, but it has a great tensile strength when pulled against its grain. The strength of the garrote. It's tinted in pastel colors that blend, graduate, into one another, all except one. it goes from a flamingo pink to a peach tone and then to a still paler flesh tint—and then suddenly an angry, jagged splash of blood colors comes in, not even like the other...

The blood isn't red anymore. It's rusty brown now. But it's still blood, all the same. Ten years from now, twenty, it'll still be blood; faded out, vanished, the pollen of, the dust of blood. What was one once warm and moving. And made blushes and rushed with anger and paled with fear. Like that night—

Fortunately you can find more Woolrich works available these days, including re-releases of some of his novels and short stories by Hard Case Crime, Pegasus Books. Random House, and others. Almost any one of his stories would make for fine Halloween fare, as you find yourself sucked down into the nihilistic noir world that Woolrich created.

[RetroHound · Rating 4 out of 5]

This guy really knows how to write. My first Woolrich and I am impressed. He keeps things moving and his style is such that you'd think it's a modern writer writing about the 1940s.

[Edoardo Nicoletti · Rating 5 out of 5]

Woorich non tradisce mai. E più scarne ed essenziali sono le storie più emerge l'ineguagliabile capacità di tenere il lettore sul filo del rasoio.

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first reading of this author, one of the heavyweights I gather. I have to choose between 3 and 4 stars so I give 4. There are a few clunkers but the fun ones make up for it.

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had never heard of Cornell Woolrich before I randomly picked up this book at Half Price Books. It looked interesting, it was short stories, and it did not disappoint. Says the bio on the cover, "Cornell Woolrich wrote his first novel in 1926, and throughout the next four decades his fiction riveted the reading public with unparalleled mystery, suspense, and horror. America's most popular pulps - Dime Detective, Black Mask, and Detective Fiction Weekly - published hundreds of his stories." Movies such as Hitchcock's Rear Window were based on his work.

This collection, published in 2004, includes 14 of his short stories. The genre might be considered "noir." I could certainly see the sort of "Sin City" vibe as I read these stories. They kept my attention to the point that I didn't want to leave my breaks at work so I could finish the story I was reading.

One of my favorites, "The Case of the Killer-Diller," involved a young lady in a jazz band that played their own rendition of Ravel's "Bolero," which drove a person mad to the point that he killed someone every time he heard it. But he made the killing appear to be a suicide. No one seriously began questioning it until the third time.

Another good one, "The Heavy Sugar," was about some stolen jewelry that had been hidden in a sugar bowl in a local diner. A regular patron observes the strange behavior of a guy moving from table to table, ordering another cup of coffee, and then spooning sugar into it.

"The Fatal Footlights" told the tale of a woman killed by simply denying a necessity from her. You see, she danced in a burlesque show, completely covered in gold paint. Someone took her cleanser so she couldn't take it off between shows, which, ultimately, caused her death by prolonged exposure to the paint.

Some of the stories involve detectives, some don't. All of them involve some kind of crime. All of them are simply written, yet well-written, in order to capture the imagination and keep it held captive until the end.

I would love to find some more of Woolrich's work.

[Sirbriang2 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Night and Fear is a collection of previously uncollected short stories by Cornell Woolrich. Originally published between 1936 and 1970 in a variety of magazines and publications, this is sort of a catch-all for the remaining notable works that editor Francis Nevins did not include in the last collection she edited.

Overall, this is a good read, with a good variety of noir-ish tales. I don't know if any of these qualify as "great," but aside from some promising (but rough) early works, I was thoroughly entertained. I'm not too familiar with Woolrich's work, but if stories of this quality could be left uncollected this long, then the man must have had a pretty good body of work that I will definitely be investigating.

[Tony · Rating 4 out of 5]

Woolrich is great. To my taste, the book is worth buying if only to reading the masterpiece "New York Blues" at the end of the collection. Some of the other stuff is standard pulp that doesn't show off his quite wonderful writing skills. To really see the man write, you should pick up his novel Night Has a Thousand Eyes

[Jorge · Rating 5 out of 5]

Woolrich is a fantastic hard-boiled fiction writer in the vein of James Cain. His works have been adapted into film noir classics and Hitchcock thrillers. He seems to have been a major influence on Ian Fleming as well.

[Korynn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection of stories manages to not repeat itself thematically despite the similar themes of madness, violence, panic, and nail-biting suspense. Truly great shorts by a master of crime.

[Gordon Howard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good collection of pulp noir fiction short stories.

[KC · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great collection of stories--I really enjoyed the twists