Waltz into Darkness

by Cornell Woolrich, Wallace Stroby (Introduction)

Overview

When a long-distance romance leads to betrayal, an obsessed man descends into madness in a chilling classic from “the supreme master of suspense” (New York Times).
 
When New Orleans coffee merchant Louis Durand first meets his bride-to-be after a months-long courtship by mail, he’s shocked that she doesn’t match the photographs sent with her correspondence. But Durand has told his own fibs, concealing from her the details of his wealth—so he mostly feels fortunate to find her so much more beautiful than expected. Soon after they marry, however, he becomes increasingly convinced that the woman in his life is not the same woman with whom he exchanged letters, a fact that becomes unavoidable when she suddenly disappears with his fortune.
 
Alone, desperate, and inexplicably lovesick, Louis quickly descends into madness, obsessed with finding Julia and bringing her to justice—and simply seeing her again. He engages the services of a private detective to do so, embarking on a search that spans the southeast of the country. When he finally tracks her down, the nightmare truly begins . . .
 
A dark tale of the destructive power of love, and the basis for a Francois Truffaut film, Waltz into Darkness is a classic femme-fatale narrative that shows the Edgar Award-winning “father of the modern suspense story” (Los Angeles Times) at the top of his unsettling craft.
 
“A richly embroidered tapestry . . . this is classic noir well worthy of a revival.”― Booklist
 
“Excellent.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
 
Originally published under the name William Irish

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781613161531
Publisher:	Penzler Publishers
Publication date:	06/15/2022
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	364
Sales rank:	603,240
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Born George Hopley-Woolrich, Cornell Woolrich (1903–1968) is the pen name most often employed by one of America’s best crime and noir writers, whose other pseudonyms included George Hopley and William Irish, the moniker under which Waltz into Darkness was first published. His novels were among the first to employ the atmosphere, outlook, and impending sense of doom that came to be characterized as noir, and inspired some of the most famous films of the period, including Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window, Francois Truffaut’s The Bride Wore Black, The Phantom Lady, and celebrated B-movies such as The Leopard Man and Black Angel.
From the 1930s until his death in 1968, Cornell Woolrich riveted the reading public with his mystery, suspense, and horror stories. Classic films like Hitchcock’s Rear Window and Truffaut’s The Bride Wore Black and novels like Night Has a Thousand Eyes earned Woolrich epithets like “the twentieth century’s Edgar Allen Poe” and “the father of noir.”

What People are Saying About This

Ellery Queen

"He can distill more terror, more downright nail-biting suspense out of even the most commonplace happening than nearly all his competitors."

Editorial Reviews

"Of all the authors whose forte was turning our spines to columns of ice, the supreme master of the art, the Hitchcock of the written word, was Cornell Woolrich."

Believer Magazine

"A richly embroidered tapestry . . . this is classic noir well worthy of a revival"

Booklist

"The writing of Cornell Woolrich goes through you like a shriek in the night."

Dorothy Salisbury Davis

"One of the great masters."

Ellery Queen