Dinastia di morti

by Cornell Woolrich, William Irish (Pseudonym)

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Genres: Mystery

236 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1951

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

[Nel Diblan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un detective de Nueva York, llega a un pequeño pueblito isleño para "descansar". Poco fue el descanso, ya que apenas llegó, en su propia pensión ocurre un "suicidio" que, ante la sorpresa e incredulidad del sheriff del lugar, resultó ser un homicidio. Y luego otro, y otro, otro y otro más. ¿Qué estaba pasando? Las muertes no parecen tener nada en común.. más que una cancioncita silbada por alguien al momento de cada crimen.

Este libro formó parte de la colección "El Séptimo Círculo", que salió originalmente en 1945 y ahora Clarín reeditó en doce entregas. De la colección original, este año ya leí "El Solitario" y "Rosaura a las Diez", y ahora "Serenata del Estrangulador". Las tres fueron excelentes policiales, en los que el misterio, la intriga y la astucia para resolver el problema, son rasgos que las hacen entretenidas y atrapantes.

Yo amo la novela policial y de misterio, entonces admito que tiene que ser extremadamente mala para que no me guste 😂, pero más allá de mi falta de objetividad con el género, reconózcanme che, que si una colección como esta fue seleccionada y revisada por un tal Borges y un tal Bioy Casares... debe ser buena de verdad y no solo porque yo soy público fácil 🤣. Sin duda voy a seguir con la colección y sin duda son 4 nelsitos 🧒🧒🧒🧒

[Rafael Val · Rating 4 out of 5]

William Irish es el seudónimo de Cornell George Hopley-Woolrich, considerado el cuarto mejor escritor policial tras Dashiell Hammett, Erle Stanley Gardner y Raymond Chandler.
Estos antecedentes quedan a la vista en esta novela inteligente y con una trama imprevisible.

[Alonzo Church · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tired New York detective goes to New England seashore to get some rest. Instead he finds himself in a Cornell Woolrich farrago of trouble. Will he save our heroine from the Strangler’s Serenade? Or will a madman complete his mission of strangulation?

This is far from Woolrich at his best, which makes the sheer improbability of his plotting very easy to see. (It isn’t hard to guess the villain, either.) But about 40 pages of this one are quite exceptional — a suspense sequence pitting our nice but very frightened heroine against an implacable lunatic; followed by a fight for the ages, and a genuinely upsetting unmasking of the crazy.

I liked this because I have a soft spot for Woolrich’s noir emotionalism. He wants you to cry for his lunatic and his victims, and realizes that his male audience likely can’t do that. Men make bad mourners. But to get to these moments, you have to plow through a lot “how can you be this stupid” hero antics and plot convolutions and contrivances that strain credulity. So I give it 4 stars and YMMV.

[Romeo Vernazza · Rating 2 out of 5]

Non bisognerebbe rispolverare le passioni passate. Tu sei cambiato, loro sono sempre quelle, come un mattone di spinaci congelati. Da ragazzo il cupo Cornell Woolrich (o il suo pseudonimo William Irish) mi avvinceva per la tristezza dei destini segnati e per i personaggi che facevano di tutto per sfuggirvi, spesso inutilmente. I libri di genere invecchiano velocemente e spesso male. Questo giallo del 1950 ti avvince per il suo ritmo incalzante e per i discreti colpi di scena, ma il contesto e i personaggi sono stereotipati e l'esito piuttosto prevedibile. Si vede tutto il mestiere dello scrittore, che forse doveva consegnare un libro ogni sei mesi. Ma forse ho ripreso in mano uno dei peggiori gialli di Woolrich. Speriamo. Potrei riprovarci più avanti. Tanto li ho tutti.

[Tittirossa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ironico e tenerissimo. Stringente. Ho rischiato di strangolarmi gli occhi per non corre avanti.
Con W. è sempre così, la prima lettura è per "sapere come va a finire".
Anche perché ti abitua a non avere fiducia di lui: a volte tragedia, a volte lieto fine.
Che maestria nel ripetere con eguale cadenza gli identici gesti che si susseguono per una settimana.
E il rispetto per la morte, pietà per le vittime anche se colpevoli. Quasi un senso di solidarietà che accomuna buoni e cattivi contro il destino.

[Nui · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not a superb novel. The characters are plain and rather forgettable and the story is so simple that it gets boring at some point. The book can be entertaining and enjoyable at certain parts tho.

[katherina · Rating 4 out of 5]

4,5⭐️

“el cuerpo muerto, pero la mente viva al remordimiento. ningún código legal pudo ser más cruel.” que terrorífico fue leer este libro… mi corazón latía a más no poder

[Todd DeZwaan · Rating 4 out of 5]

strangler’s serenade
This was a fun read. It is out of print, and I have had it on my shelf for decades. I started out thinking it would be maybe a three-star read, but the combination of the mystery, post-war nostalgia, and visual writing style (“As though the sloping slabs in the cemetery were just markers left from some game that had once been played there.”) bumps it to four stars. I enjoyed it like I enjoy reading an old Weird Tales comic or watching an episode Alfred Hitchcock Presents. In fact, Rear Window was based on the Cornell Woolrich story It Had To Be Murder. (William Irish is a pseudonym Woolrich used. Woolrich’s story itself reads like a mid-century Hollywood tragedy and endeared me even more to this book. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornell...). If you can get ahold of a copy, strangler’s serenade makes for a great page-turner vacation read. I will definitely keep an eye out for more William Irish/Cornell Woolrich books in second-hand stores.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

Expanded from the novelette “Four Bars of Yankee Doodle” (1945), Strangler’s Serenade (1951) is Cornell Woolrich running out of gas. If you set out to read Woolrich’s suspense novels in chronological order, this is probably where you stop. The novel’s hero is Champ Prescott, a Big City Cop who is taking forced “rest” after getting shot in the line of duty, but, of course, there will be no rest for him. When he arrives at a boarding house in a small island community, he finds the first murder victim awaiting him. From here, Woolrich foregoes any damaged-cop psychodrama, opting instead for clichés of the Big City Cop showing the yokels how it’s done. Season with a love interest and standard-issue Absurd Woolrich Plotting, and the result is closer to terrible than it is to Woolrich’s Black Period.

[Yasmin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ciertamente no he leído muchas novelas policiacas, y en mi mundo de lectora pocas cosas estarán a la altura de La bestia debe morir, pero Serenata del estrangulador es una novela ágil, eficiente y muy, muy entretenida que contiene todos los ingredientes del género. Se trata de un libro muy disfrutable, en el que los personajes (sin importar de si se tratan de justos o pecadores, que ninguno lo es en grado absoluto) tienen sus bajorrelieves que los hacen creíbles.