Four Novellas of Fear: Eyes That Watch You, The Night I Died, You'll Never See Me Again, Murder Always Gathers Momentum

by Cornell Woolrich

Cornell Woolrich, best known as the author of “Rear Window,” is unsurpassed in his ability to create and sustain sheer suspense. In his tales of terror, ordinary people find themselves in the most extraordinary circumstances—and, as readers, we share their spine-tingling tension every step of the way. Collected here are four of his most nail-biting THAT WATCH Greedy Vera Miller plots her husband’s murder right under the nose of her mute, paralyzed mother-in-law. After all, the old lady won’t be able to tell anyone about the crime. Or will she?THE NIGHT I Nice guy Ben Cook, goaded by his scheming common-law wife, fakes his own suicide and moves to another town—all to trick his life insurance company into making a large payout. No one en route or at the new address will recognize him, will they?YOU’LL NEVER SEE ME AGAI”: Ed Bliss’s new bride, miffed by her husband’s insults about her biscuits, promises that Ed will never have to see her again—and storms out! When she doesn’t return within a few days, Ed begins to suspect foul play—but when he reports the crime to the police, he’s the first one they suspect!MURDER ALWAYS GATHERS For his wife’s sake, Dick Paine approaches a former employer for back wages he is owed—but things go terribly wrong and the old boss ends up dead. Now the guilt-ridden Paine, who’d never before committed a crime, is convinced that people will figure out what happened. As his paranoia gathers momentum, anyone he meets is at risk of becoming his next victim.

Genres: Noir, Crime, Mystery, Short Stories, Fiction, Thriller, Novella

192 pages, Paperback

First published March 14, 2010

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 4 out of 5]

06/2016

Eyes That Watch You is a sad, frustrating, tale of a paralyzed woman unable to stop her son's murder, but, through the help of a patient detective, finally able to catch the killers. The Night I Died is a classic Woolrich story about faking your own suicide (with a stand in corpse) then running into a coworker on the bus afterward. Obviously, more murder ensues. Murder Always Gathers Momentum is another of these Depression-era tragedies. My favorite, You'll Never See Me Again, I read before, in the Woolrich collection Nightwebs. I happily read it again. It's terrific.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm a champion of the work of Cornell Woolrich - so it's not surprising that I would check out this little-known 2010 publication of four stories written between 1936 and 1940. I found myself wondering how this volume came about - and anticipated an introduction explaining a bit about the selection process. 

But there's no intro - it's just the four stories; not novellas (as advertised) but long short stories (the third one being particularly long but still not long enough to be called a novella). 

To my added surprise, they're rather good. Maybe not among my favorites when it comes to this author but certainly solid-enough to please Woolrich completists in particular. If you're as accustomed to his style as I am, it's likely you'll notice some flaws (there's a big one in the third story - or is it a character flaw as opposed to a narrative flaw?; it begs the question).

But what overrides the improbable is the area of Woolrich's main strength: his practically unerring talent for tension. 

In 'Eyes That Watch You', a completely paralyzed woman has only her eyes to help her battle her son's murderers. The woman's almost total inability to help or defend herself makes the tension immediate. 

'The Night I Died' has an ill-fated Regular Joe creating his own tension by being a sucker. 'In-for-a-penny' becomes 'In-for-a-pulsating-pound'.

'You'll Never See Me Again' - the longest of the four tales - shows its nail-biting potential early on. It also has a 'hide in plain sight' element that is all the more chilling due to its ordinariness. 

'Murder Always Gathers Momentum' may be the most Woolrich-esque in this volume. It's a domino effect-ride on steroids, complete with the kind of upshot-to-the-head conclusion that Woolrich is often cited for. 

My 4-star rating may be a bit generous - yet not really. These aren't inferior stories; they're just maybe a bit less complex than Woolrich at his best. Still, I can't deny their effectiveness. 

I tend to corral Woolrich (whether writing as Woolrich or as William Irish) with the likes of Stephen King and Philip K. Dick - in the sense that all three appear 'addicted' to writing in a way that can result in works ranging from 'the good, the bad and the ugly'. What sets Woolrich apart is that, although King and Dick (good as they can be) can sometimes seem downright sloppy in execution, Woolrich (with an admittedly smaller output) always exhibits a weird determination to not let the reader down (i.e., to avoid sloppiness). At least it seemed that way when he was working on most if not all cylinders. 

It can be a bit challenging (not impossible but not easy) these days to locate a fair amount of Woolrich's work - esp. his many shorter stories. Some longer works - including favorites like 'The Bride Wore Black' and 'Deadline at Dawn' - are again available thanks to Otto Penzler's American Mystery Classics series (along with some other titles elsewhere). But for those who feel an affinity for the author's style, his short work is not short on gems. And this collection contains some.

[Glenn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great suspense, times four, from Woolrich here. Each piece is tautly written, immensely suspenseful and, although created in a very different time, timeless in their plausibility. His economy of words is what makes his style so sharp and absorbing. Marvelous reads.

[Pamela · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is Woolrich therefore it is good. Nothing more needs to be said.

[AC · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first two stories are mediocre; the last two are worth the price of the ticket

Cornell Woolrich, “Eyes That Watch You” (1939) [3.5]

Cornell Woolrich, “The Night I Died” (1936) [DNF]

Cornell Woolrich, “You’ll Never See Me Again” (1939) [5+] - excellent, though a bit long and convoluted, and the resolve is too clearly hinted at too soon

Cornell Woolrich, “Murder Always Gathers Momentum” (1940) [5.5.]. A nice little philosophic noir gem

[Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

Four novellas from Cornell Woolrich, who is rightly named a master of suspense. The titles of the individual pieces are listed in the title for this. The first three created absolutely edge of the seat tension for me. Great characters that involved me instantly in their stories and wonderfully twisted situations. My favorite was "You'll Never See Me Again," about a man who has a silly fight with his wife. She storms out to go to her mother's and then disappears. The distraught husband tries to figure out what happened to her and the suspense and tension build to an intense climax.

The only story I didn't particularly find compelling was the last one, "Murder Always Gather's Momentum." It was well written but I didn't really like either of the husband and wife characters, and the way in which "murder gathered momentum" quickly became more amusing than tense to me. It almost seemed like Woolrich intended for this one to be more campy than the others. Overall, though, I really enjoyed this collection of stories.

[Eric_W · Rating 4 out of 5]

Aside from the fine writing and sense of noir in these four stories, it's always fun to get lost in a sense of time as well as place. Tires that get patched and blow out constantly, no cell phones, cars with no windscreens, screeching speeds over forty and coal furnaces. (I actually remember living in a house that had a coal furnace.) Geesh.

My favorite, I think was "You'll Never See Me Again," where a couple of newlyweds get into a squabble after six months of marriage, she walks out and disappears. The fact that he's an architect and tires were patched results in a satisfactory ending. (And that's not a spoiler.)

Read these four. The places and time may have changed but not human motivations.

[Rog Pile · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eyes That Watch YouMrs Janet Miller is a contented woman. She has everything she needs. So long as she has the feel of the warm sun on her body, the blue sky overhead, and the voice of her son Vern Miller in her ears, she is content.

In fact she is entirely paralyzed and unable to speak or sign or do any thing at all without Vera or Vern’s assistance, but as long as she has those few things, she’ll ask for nothing more.

Then she learns that her daughter-in-law Vera is planning, with her lover Jimmy Haggard, to murder Vern. And there’s not a damn thing Janet can do to prevent it. She’s so helpless that when Vera realises her plan has been overheard, she doesn’t even worry about it. What can Janet do, anyway?

The murder is one of the most ghoulish that I've encountered in fiction, matching the burying-alive of Marty in the Cohen brothers Blood Simple. Vera plans to take advantage of a faulty bathroom water heater to gas Vern. She will escape the effects of the gas by wearing a gas mask. And just so that people won’t become suspicious at too many corpses turning up overnight, Jimmy Haggard has brought two masks, so Janet will also be protected whether she wants it or not.

At this point our synopsis has progressed about as far as it can without becoming a spoiler and the only additional detail that needs be mentioned is that our cast list isn't quite complete. We still need to meet a wandering young man with the unlikely name of Casement. And straight away you know this guy ain't what he appears to be…

This story was originally published in Dime Detective September 1939 as The Case of the Talking Eyes

The Night I Died“The Point about me is that I should stay on the right side of the fence all those years, and then when I did go over, go over heart and soul like I did – all in the space of one night. In one hour, you might say.”

I’ve no idea how many noir stories pivot on the idea that a man’s life can change in an instant (usually for the worst), but I’d guess lots. Usually in these stories it’s the man’s life which changes; the woman is the one who’ll make the changes happen because she’s got into some mess, been kidnapped maybe, or is being blackmailed, so he has to rescue her or get her out of trouble. Or she’s a Machiavellian scheming bitch that any man with sense would run a mile from, but we just know he’s got such a bad case of the hots they’re going to end up swinging together.

There are some things that a man in a noir story should never do. He should never let his wife take out life insurance for him. And he should never never go home early to give her a surprise. You just know if he does that, the one in for the real surprise will be him.

So when Ben Cook goes home earlier than usual with a bag of toffees for Thelma, he probably deserves all he’ll get and, as he goes into the house, we’re not the least surprised that he hears voices. Or that the voices are those of Thelma and a man he doesn't know. And the next thing he knows, he hears the two of them plotting his death.

With the advantage of surprise on his side, Ben takes control of the situation and Thelma’s scheme now undergoes some fundamental restructuring as Ben drops out of sight in order that the world will believe he’s dead and that that all-important insurance claim will be paid – initially, at least – to Thelma.

But we have a fair way to go before we’re at the end, and the path is likely to get a mite bloody.

This story was first published in Detective Fiction Weekly, August 8th, 1936. Happily I've been able to locate the cover of that issue at The Fiction Mags Index. And look closely at that cover (below). Did he really publish this story anonymously? I read the story in Four Novellas of Fear, 2010, A J Cornell. Publications.



You'll Never See Me Again“The Point about me is that I should stay on the right side of the fence all those years, and then when I did go over, go over heart and soul like I did – all in the space of one night. In one hour, you might say.”

I’ve no idea how many noir stories pivot on the idea that a man’s life can change in an instant (usually for the worst), but I’d guess lots. Usually in these stories it’s the man’s life which changes; the woman is the one who’ll make the changes happen because she’s got into some mess, been kidnapped maybe, or is being blackmailed, so he has to rescue her or get her out of trouble. Or she’s a Machiavellian scheming bitch that any man with sense would run a mile from, but we just know he’s got such a bad case of the hots they’re going to end up swinging together.

There are some things that a man in a noir story should never do. He should never let his wife take out life insurance for him. And he should never never go home early to give her a surprise. You just know if he does that, the one in for the real surprise will be him.

So when Ben Cook goes home earlier than usual with a bag of toffees for Thelma, he probably deserves all he’ll get and, as he goes into the house, we’re not the least surprised that he hears voices. Or that the voices are those of Thelma and a man he doesn't know. And the next thing he knows, he hears the two of them plotting his death.

With the advantage of surprise on his side, Ben takes control of the situation and Thelma’s scheme now undergoes some fundamental restructuring as Ben drops out of sight in order that the world will believe he’s dead and that that all-important insurance claim will be paid – initially, at least – to Thelma.

But we have a fair way to go before we’re at the end, and the path is likely to get a mite bloody.

This story was first published in Detective Fiction Weekly, August 8th, 1936. Happily I've been able to locate the cover of that issue at The Fiction Mags Index. And look closely at that cover. Did he really publish this story anonymously? I read the story in Four Novellas of Fear, 2010, A J Cornell. Publications.


Murder Always Gathers MomentumYears ago Richard Paine had deferred half his wages to help his employer Ben Burroughs through hard times; but now, after Burroughs has declared himself bankrupt and cancelled his company’s debts, he’s been left comfortably well-off, while Paine is unemployed and he and his wife face eviction. Paine decides it’s time to ask Burroughs for the money he owes and goes to visit him by night. Through a window he sees Burroughs opening a safe, and, not believing that the old man will honour the debt, he decides to rob him. Things go wrong and Paine is precipitated into a chain of events which lead to him escaping across the city, leaving a trail of corpses in his wake.

This is not a favourite story of mine. This story of a frightened man in desperate times has an air of doomed inevitability about it from the start; almost from the first lines we know that no good is going to come out of Richard Paine’s night journey to Burroughs’ home.

As a portrayal of a man trapped in intolerable circumstances, it’s powerful stuff. Francis M Nevins wrote in his book Cornell Woolrich: First You Dream, Then You Die: “When it comes to putting us in the skin of a frightened little guy in a miserable little apartment with a hungry wife and children and no money and no job and fear of tomorrow eating him like a cancer, Woolrich has no peers. There is more of the anguish of the thirties in stories like Murder Always Gathers Momentum than in volumes of social history.”

True, and it’s interesting that the editor of Detective Fiction Weekly decided to publish this story in a time (December 1940) when its readers had not long emerged from the Great Depression and the world was slipping back into war, a time when most would surely have preferred to read more escapist stuff than being reminded they were themselves living in such desperate times.

As social comment the story is a valid document, while as fiction, criticizing Woolrich can be likened to throwing rocks at the moon. Let’s face it, we read Woolrich for his bleak worldview. But this one’s so remorselessly downbeat, and the final lines which reveal too late that the whole mess only began because Paine and his wife didn't communicate enough, left me with a flat and disappointed feeling. The problem wasn't the Great Depression, it was just a couple who should have talked more. And people say Americans don’t understand irony?

Below is a link to a free download of the 27th October 1949 broadcast of Woolrich's Momentum, an episode of Suspense scripted by E Jack Neuman and starring Victor Mature and Lurene Tuttle. Details differ from Woolrich's original story.

Woolrich's 'Momentum' broadcast in Suspense

[Quỳnh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tổng thể thì You'll Never See Me Again dễ đọc và hài hòa nhất. Murder Always Gathers Momentum thê thảm nhất. Eyes That Watch You đi vào lối mòn những truyện trinh thám khác của tác giả, phần điều tra phá án quá đơn giản, khiến truyện bị hụt ở ở nửa cuối.

[Tina Tamman · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is not the best of Cornell Woolrich that this collection provides. Not the author's fault either. However, I am a fan of his, like his scope. This collection brings together fairly similar stories of murder but Woolrich was capable for much more than this. Hence only 3 stars.

[Shawn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Still picking my way through some choice Woolrich shorts - in this case, I only read "The Night I Died".

It's the classic noir set-up - an average man discovers his wife has plotted with a hobo to kill him and collect the insurance money. He kills the hobo in a struggle and then begrudgingly agrees to go through with the plan with his scheming wife anyway, using the dead man's body as his own (after some lye helps with identity obfuscation). They set up the false suicide and he flees out of town to catch a night bus to a distant town - and that's when the trouble starts!

There's lots of clipped, cynical noir talk in this (everybody always biting off wry, heartless observations), methodical plotting as the scheming duo attempt to cover all the angles and, as in a lot of Woolrich, an accidental death leads to deliberate murder as events spin out of control. Woolrich, of course, is a master of suspense and tension and it's funny how, as in a heist film, we find ourselves rooting for the criminal schemers (it's to Woolrich's credit that once he's conjured that suspense momentum, he tightens the screws on our moral relativity by increasing the heinousness of the actions). Also, similar to his "Dusk To Dawn" (which I reviewed in Nightwebs), this features a normal guy who, through some inciting incident not arising from himself, pursues a path to darker and more criminal extremes, only to "awake" at the end, purged of some inherent darkness.

A very engaging story!

[Holger Haase · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of four Noir Novellas by Cornell Woolrich. For the most part I'd call them short stories but I guess the definition of what constitutes a novella can fluctuate quite a bit.

Woolrich is one of my favourite Noir authors. I am far from even scratching at the surface of his oeuvre but I like his motifs even when I come across them while listening to Old Time Radio shows like "Suspense" or when watching his stories or novels being adapted for screen or TV.

FOUR NOVELLAS OF FEAR is typical Woolrich fare: A paralytic, wheelchair-bound woman who can only communicate through the blinking of her eyes overhears plans for her murder. A dull man who never did wrong accidentally commits a killing, fakes his own death and falls ever deeper into a life of crime. An argument over the wife's baking skills leads to her running out of the house and the husband being accused of murder. Chasing up an unpaid wage check results into an unexpected killing spree for one of the victims of the Great Depression.

I don't think any of the stories would fall into my Top 10 of Woolrich stories but average Woolrich stuff is still better than most stories by other writers.

[Steven · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed these four novellas a lot. The pacing is impressive, fifty pages of go go go, just doesn’t let up. The primary technique is to narrate from within the head of someone whose mind is racing and just run with those racing thoughts in between description of fast-paced action.

[Jiří Pavlovský · Rating 4 out of 5]

Přípravka na další Rudou žeň, oprášení krále noiru a prince zoufalství, Cornella Woolriche. Chlápka, který si zoufalství zkoušel na vlastní kůži - a o to sugestivněji to pak dovedl převést do literatury. Jeho parketou byl souboj hrdiny proti celému světu, boj s časem, boj s vlastní nemohoucností a nedostatečností… a příběhy, které připomínaly spíš noční můry.

Tady ty čtyři povídky/novely ho zachycují v plné formě. Dvě z nich (The Night I Died a Murder Always Gather Momentum) zachycují příběhy slušných lidí, kteří jednou podlehnou svodům a už to s nimi jede. I když je téma i zakončení hodně klasické, samotný průběh je démonicky našlápnutý. V prvním příběhu jen hrdina finguje své úmrtí… a na problémy narazí hned v autobuse na cestě z domova. V druhé to graduje ještě víc a mrtvoly se začínají vršit až groteskním tempem.

Základem sborníku jsou ale příběhy Eyes That Watches You a You´ll Never See Me Again. Woolrich s oblibou používá oslabené hrdiny… ať už jsou to děti, lidé upoutaní na vozíček (slavné Okno do dvora), a tady máte v prvním příběhu starou paní, která je zcela ochrnutá, nemůže ani mluvit a vlastně jediné, čím může hýbat, jsou oči. A zaslechne snachu, jak plánuje vraždu jejího syna. Zvládne jí zabránit?

Tohle je fakt parádní dílo, které dokáže překvapit… byť, aby se to vyřešilo, potřebuje autor pomoc z jiné strany.

Druhý příběh ten už kombinuje skoro všechny Woolrichovy prvky. Máme tu hrdinu, který se pohádá s manželkou, ta odejde k mamince …a když ji hrdina začne (tak zhruba za dva dny, přece nevyměkne) hledat, zjistí, že domů nedorazila a že o ní nikdo neví. Máte tady jak tu situaci, kdy svět kolem postav přestane dávat smysl, kdy cítí, že něco není úplně v pořádku, ale netuší co… ale brzy se k tomu přidá i skutečnost, že policie okamžitě začne podezřívat jeho, zvláště, když se nachází důkazy, že nemluvil tak úplně pravdu. A ve finále k tomu ještě přibude souboj s časem, a dokonce i poměrně zajímavé vysvětlení problému. A poučení, že ženy mají poslouchat manžela, protože jen s ním jsou v bezpečí.

Vlastně jediné, co bych Woolrichovi z pohledu moderního čtenáře vytknul (tedy, když odmyslíme, že postavení ženy je tam hodně poplatné době), je možná až příliš velká emočnost a tlak na pilu. Jde do toho fakt na plno, což v některých románech už může unavovat – tady mu to ale funguje. Tempo, napětí, nápady, atmosféra, to šlape pořád parádně.

[Steve Payne · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good selection of stories with even the weaker fourth one (Murder Always Gathers Momentum) being of interest. This one's a character study and the weak main character could have been a precursor to some of those timid characters that Rod Serling was so fond of creating for The Twilight Zone. Only problem with this story, after a gripping start, is that it goes on and on until all logicality disappears.

The opening two stories of the collection are my favourites here. Firstly is Eyes That Watch You, in which a paralysed woman who is unable to speak hears her sister-in-law and boyfriend plan the murder of her son. This is a tense and engrossing read. The Night I Died is another atmospheric piece in which a man catches his wife with another man. It's easy to see after reading this and the previous story why Woolrich is so highly regarded by many fans of pulp noir fiction. The fully rounded, if often strange characters, make you want to read on; and throughout his stories there's an air of real tension.

You'll Never See Me Again is another fine story that adds emotion to the Woolrich palette. A husband is sorry when he lets his wife walk out on him over a silly spat over her cooking. The only criticism here is that it's a tad too long, with the denouement taking about ten pages too many. But given his market, Woolrich was often paid by the word count!

This would make a fine introduction to the weird and tense world of Cornell Woolrich. Another good collection of stories is Night And Fear.

[Csaba Rusznyák · Rating 5 out of 5]

All four novellas are great, tense and dark noir tales with insidious twists and turns and with a grim outlook on human nature. (Even the title of the last novella is essential noir just in itself: Murder Always Gathers Momentum.)

But the longest one, You'll Never See Me Again is a bone fide masterpiece. It is almost funny in the beginning with the newlyweds bickering about petty things, their egos not letting them to give an inch despite their apparent feelings for each other... like some kind of a marital satire. But then comes the ever deepening sense of "something is very wrong here" and then Woolrich fires up the rocket engines and the whole thing flies off like a motherfucker and never stops, never slows down again. The second half of the story is a frantic, unrelenting race against time, a crazy night drive through fear and dread. It is a masterclass in suspense. It is Hitchcock on cocaine.

This was my first affair with Woolrich. Definitely won't be the last.

[Dan Blackley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cornell Woolrich is one of the most prolific Noir writers but most people don't know who he is. His claim to fame was writing the short story, Rear Window, that Hitchcock made into the amazing film. Woolrich spent most of his life in a small apartment building writing the darkest Noir around. He was so lonely, that he dedicated one of his books to his typewriter.

This book has four novellas from him. The first story, Eyes that Watch You and the Third Story, You'll Never See Me Again are great stories. The other two are fine, but not as good as these. Woolrich put characters into no win situations and let them wallow in their self despair. I enjoy his dark world and have started to read anything he wrote. (He also wrote under the pseudo: William Irish)

[Adam Rosenbaum · Rating 4 out of 5]

From the guy who brought you Hitchcock's Rear Window this compilation of 4 novellas illustrates how suspense is created, sustained, and resolved. Sparse and taut, all these tales showcase desperation. In the first one, a daughter-in-law plots to murder her mother-in-law to collect the insurance money. After all, the woman is a quadriplegic in a wheelchair and cannot speak. She can however hear and knows what is being planned, which is terrifying. In the other 3 tales, we see how greed and circumstances can force some pretty drastic measures. Dread is the emotion that Woolrich embodies his characters. No fluff.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very nice set of novellas. Sometimes the tropes are familiar (the woman who can't speak or move but who witnesses a murder, for example), but Woolrich always pulls you right into the story. The last one, Murder Always Gathers Momentum, is my favorite, and is a real hoot. I haven't read him in a long long time, but he's well worth re-reading.

[Steven]

All four of these stories demonstrate Woolrich on his game. I did particularly love "Eyes That Watch You," about a paralyzed woman, living in a house with murders, and needing to somehow save herself. Woolrich really knows how to ratchet up the tension...

[Guy Salvidge · Rating 2 out of 5]

The writing is generally poor, the plots mostly ridiculous, and yet I am a little intrigued. It may well be that this isn't Woolrich's best work.

[Jilles · Rating 3 out of 5]

Classic suspense like we used to get from Hitchcock.

[James S. Marshall · Rating 5 out of 5]

Favorite author

Definition of suspense
So cleanly written. Spare, taut prose.
Fatalistic, realistic, absent any fluff.
Superb late night reading for aficionados.

[Wyatt]

Good selection of classic thriller stories.

[Donna Ferguson · Rating 5 out of 5]

excellent writer!

Cornell Woolrich was a genius re suspenseful crime stories. Give yourself a treat and read everything he ever wrote! Stunning!

[Joelendil · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cornell Woolrich cracks the top 5 of my favorite pulp mystery/crime writers. He doesn’t always manage a satisfactory ending, and he frequently uses distractingly bizarre similes and metaphors (e.g. “His face was an unbaked cruller of rage.”), but the man knows how to ratchet up the tension!

All four novellas in this collection show him to advantage. His endings make sense (at least as much sense as any pulp fiction) and don’t come completely out of left field. He avoids weird figures of speech (which I actually kind of missed). And the pages drip with his trademark tension. I highly recommend this if you’re in the mood for grim pulp fiction.

[Jure · Rating 4 out of 5]

As expected, not much of the asphalt jungle's bright city lights here with cynical detectives investigating complex plots involving dirty politicians blackmails or addicted celebrities doing porn flicks. These are simple stories about everyday people who are driven by simple pleasures and whose actions are motivated by the most basic instinct and feelings. Although fear is mentioned in the collection's title, I would say that greed is their most common theme.

More here (review includes spoilers!):
http://a60books.blogspot.ie/2013/09/f...