In a nightmare scenario, Frank Townsend has an apparently minor accident on his way home but he arrives to find his wife gone and doesn't recognize his apartment. He had gone to work on a normal day but didn't return for more than three years. Suffering from amnesia, he has to rediscover who he is, where he has been, and what he has done. A curtain has fallen to cut off all memories of his life.

First among the memories he wants to recover is whether he has committed the murder of which he has been accused. A mysterious stranger with a gun has been following him while he attempts to simultaneously understand what has happened in his past while doing all he can to extricate himself from a seemingly hopeless situation and regain his reputation. He does not yet know that he is in great jeopardy and there is no one he can trust to rescue him from the abyss.

The Black Curtain is the second of Cornell Woolrich's celebrated black books, following The Bride Wore Black, which established his reputation as America's greatest noir writer. It was adapted into film as the classic Street of Chance, starring Burgess Meredith and Claire Trevor.

REAL NOIR... A GROTESQUELY MEMORABLE RIDE. - WALL STREET JOURNAL

TWO OF THE GREATEST AUTHORS OF NOIR FICTION IN AN UNFORGETTABLE COLLABORATION

An innocent woman lies dead in the street, felled by a stray bullet. Now it's up to the woman who killed her to investigate the dead woman's life and pick up its cut-short threads, carrying out a mission of vengeance on her behalf against the man she loved and lost - and the nightclub-singing femme fatale responsible for splitting them apart.

Begun in the last years of his life by noir master Cornell Woolrich, the haunted genius responsible for such classics as Rear Window, The Bride Wore Black, Night Has a Thousand Eyes, and Phantom Lady, and completed decades later by acclaimed novelist and MWA Grand Master Lawrence Block (A Walk Among the Tombstones, Eight Million Ways to Die), INTO THE NIGHT - available here for the first time in more than 35 years - is a collaboration that extends beyond the grave, echoing the book's own story of the living taking on and completing the unfinished work of the dead.

In a nightmare scenario, Frank Townsend has an apparently minor accident on his way home but he arrives to find his wife gone and doesn't recognize his apartment. He had gone to work on a normal day but didn't return for more than three years. Suffering from amnesia, he has to rediscover who he is, where he has been, and what he has done. A curtain has fallen to cut off all memories of his life.

First among the memories he wants to recover is whether he has committed the murder of which he has been accused. A mysterious stranger with a gun has been following him while he attempts to simultaneously understand what has happened in his past while doing all he can to extricate himself from a seemingly hopeless situation and regain his reputation. He does not yet know that he is in great jeopardy and there is no one he can trust to rescue him from the abyss.

The Black Curtain is the second of Cornell Woolrich's celebrated black books, following The Bride Wore Black, which established his reputation as America's greatest noir writer. It was adapted into film as the classic Street of Chance, starring Burgess Meredith and Claire Trevor.

In this classic crime novel, a panic-stricken young wife races against time to prove that her convicted husband did not murder his mistress. Writing in first person from the wife s viewpoint, Woolrich evokes her love and anguish and, finally, desperation as she becomes an avenging angel in her attempt to rescue her husband from execution.

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 novellas: EYES THAT WATCH YOU: 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 DIED: 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 MOMENTUM: 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.

When the wealthy ladies' man fell from his balcony in the midst of his engagement party, the police dismissed the death as the result of a freak accident. There was nothing to connect it with the poisoning of a lonely man in his squalid apartment, or with the married business-man killed after him, sealed into a closet and left to suffocate. No connection, that is, aside from the appearance of a beautiful woman in each case, just before the victims met their untimely ends.

Nobody knows her identity, where she comes from or whither she goes. Nor do they know why anyone would be targeting this series of seemingly-unrelated persons. But one police detective is convinced that the answers to these questions can save the lives of men who might be next on the list, men who will continue to die at a rapid rate unless he can solve the puzzle and intervene.

Cornell Woolrich's first crime novel, The Bride Wore Black is the stylish, tense thriller that launched the career of the supreme master of suspense (New York Times). It was filmed by Francois Truffaut under the same title, and went on to inspire Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill movies.

When Quinn first meets Bricky, she's working as a partner-for-hire at a dancehall and he's struggling to shake the anxiety of his guilty conscience. Earlier that day, the young man took advantage of a found key and used it to rob a stranger's home. Now, with the purloined money in his pocket, Quinn is unable to escape the memory of his wrongdoing--and not even a night spent dancing is enough to silence his nagging thoughts.

When the dancehall closes, he and Bricky--linked, after many intimate hours, by a budding romance--return to the scene of the crime intending to restore the stolen fortune and begin a new life together, only to discover, upon arrival, that the owner of the property has been murdered. There's evidence present that easily links Quinn to the crime, and he expects that, as soon as day breaks and the authorities learn of the gruesome scene, he will be arrested straight away. Which means that he and Bricky have only a few short hours to find the true killer and clear Quinn's name for good.

What begins as a romance soon turns into a nightmare, as this young couple trek through the dark underbelly of old New York in a desperate race for salvation. Twisty, turny, and breathlessly told, Deadline at Dawn is an exemplary tale 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, and 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 love-sick, Louis quickly descends into madness, obsessed with finding Julia and bringing her to justice -- and simply with 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, Waltz into Darkness is a classic femme fatale narrative that shows the father of the modern suspense story (LA Times) at the top of his unsettling craft. It has been adapted for film twice, most notably serving as the basis for Francois Truffaut's Mississippi Mermaid.

When the wealthy ladies' man fell from his balcony in the midst of his engagement party, the police dismissed the death as the result of a freak accident. There was nothing to connect it with the poisoning of a lonely man in his squalid apartment, or with the married business-man killed after him, sealed into a closet and left to suffocate. No connection, that is, aside from the appearance of a beautiful woman in each case, just before the victims met their untimely ends.

Nobody knows her identity, where she comes from or whither she goes. Nor do they know why anyone would be targeting this series of seemingly-unrelated persons. But one police detective is convinced that the answers to these questions can save the lives of men who might be next on the list, men who will continue to die at a rapid rate unless he can solve the puzzle and intervene.

Cornell Woolrich's first crime novel, The Bride Wore Black is the stylish, tense thriller that launched the career of the supreme master of suspense (New York Times). It was filmed by Francois Truffaut under the same title, and went on to inspire Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill movies.

When Quinn first meets Bricky, she's working as a partner-for-hire at a dancehall and he's struggling to shake the anxiety of his guilty conscience. Earlier that day, the young man took advantage of a found key and used it to rob a stranger's home. Now, with the purloined money in his pocket, Quinn is unable to escape the memory of his wrongdoing--and not even a night spent dancing is enough to silence his nagging thoughts.

When the dancehall closes, he and Bricky--linked, after many intimate hours, by a budding romance--return to the scene of the crime intending to restore the stolen fortune and begin a new life together, only to discover, upon arrival, that the owner of the property has been murdered. There's evidence present that easily links Quinn to the crime, and he expects that, as soon as day breaks and the authorities learn of the gruesome scene, he will be arrested straight away. Which means that he and Bricky have only a few short hours to find the true killer and clear Quinn's name for good.

What begins as a romance soon turns into a nightmare, as this young couple trek through the dark underbelly of old New York in a desperate race for salvation. Twisty, turny, and breathlessly told, Deadline at Dawn is an exemplary tale 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, and 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 love-sick, Louis quickly descends into madness, obsessed with finding Julia and bringing her to justice -- and simply with 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, Waltz into Darkness is a classic femme fatale narrative that shows the father of the modern suspense story (LA Times) at the top of his unsettling craft. It has been adapted for film twice, most notably serving as the basis for Francois Truffaut's Mississippi Mermaid.

CORNELL WOOLRICH quien utilizaba preferentemente el seud nimo de WILLIAM IRISH est justamente considerado como uno de los maestros de la novela polic aca. Ninguno como l logra tan gran realismo ni mantiene el suspense, desde la primera a la ltima p gina de todas sus obras. En este volumen: Una noche en HollywoodUna noche en MontrealUna noche en ZacamorasTaxi-girlEl cazador y su presaP nico en el metroCombate macabroVals en la oscuridad