Cornell Woolrich (1903–1968)

Because this collection contains two brilliantly crafted pieces of noir fiction, this one automatically deserves five stars simply on the strength of those two masterpieces. Because it also contains some other very good stories, it also makes it not a bad place to start if you’ve never read Woolrich’s pulp fiction and noir suspense.

That being said, I would switch up the reading order from how they are presented in this collection. Begin with All at Once, No Alice, then move on to Silent as the Grave. By the time you finish those, you’ll understand what Woolrich was about, and what he was capable of as a writer. Then you can simply relax and enjoy the various stories that all have something to offer, if not rising quite to the level of those aforementioned two gems of noir fiction.

ALL AT ONCE, NO ALICE

Cornell Woolrich first published this story in Argosy Magazine in March of 1940, under the name William Irish. Romantic, harrowing, and ultimately thrilling, All At Once, No Alice is without doubt one of the most satisfying examples of Woolrich’s genius at creating suspense — even in the shorter format.

A whirlwind romance and a shortage of hotel rooms leads to the unthinkable for a newly married man in this riveting short masterwork. When Jimmy returns in the morning after a night at the Y to pick up his bride from the tiny hotel storage room, she isn’t there. Worse, her name does not appear on the register. Both the clerk on duty that night and the bellboy claim not to remember either of the newlyweds.

With no evidence that she ever existed, the cops think he’s batty, and only their sympathy prevents him from being locked up in the loony bin. But a cop named Ainsley has a wife too, and can’t quite let Jimmy go down the tubes. When a sliver of proof — and that’s all it is, a sliver — is discovered indicating Alice might actually exist, it’s up to Ainsley and Jimmy to find her, and uncover the reason everyone is lying about Alice.

A thrilling ending caps off one of the most satisfying short stories of suspense you’ll ever read. This story is the basis for Return of the Whistler, based on the famous radio show.

SILENT AS THE GRAVE

"It was a night like any other night. The moon was out; and there were stars."

Widely regarded as one of his finest stories, Silent as the Grave is a truly beautifully written and conceived work of noir fiction. There is definitely something literary about it, Woolrich’s narrative rising far above pulp noir and suspense. If Eric Maria Remarque or Hans Fallada had decided to try their hand at noir suspense, while at the same time giving us a poignant look at the effect of the Great Depression on the average couple struggling to stay afloat, they might have come up with something like Silent as the Grave.

The opening scene, like a lot of Woolrich stories, is filled with a touching kind of romance. But immediately he plants the seed for future heartache and suspense through an off-screen murder. It is said murder, and a loving wife’s promise to never throw it back in the face of her beloved, at the heart of this nail-bitingly suspenseful story of a woman having to decide between a promise, and what she can live with when another murder occurs, and suspicion enters her heart.

The stark look at poverty Woolrich paints for the reader and the emotional suspense reaches a crescendo with a decision that will have consequences. To reveal more would be a crime, so I can’t. But there’s a reason this story is so highly regarded by fans and critics alike. You’ll never forget it.

AFTER DINNER STORY

Black Mask published this in January of 1938 and it was wildly popular. The beginning of After-Dinner Story, as a group of people are trapped in an elevator which has crashed is very exciting. It is the dinner party thrown by someone who has invited all the survivors, however, which becomes enthralling. After Dinner Story has a fabulous ending, and Woolrich later used it as the title of a collection.

DEATH AT THE BURLESQUE

This one first found the public in the June issue of Detective Fiction Weekly of 1941. A really good noir about cops taking a terrible, almost cavalier chance with someone’s life in order to catch a murderer. Something in here which I won’t talk about was Ian Fleming’s inspiration for Goldfinger.

PREVIEW OF DEATH

Martha Mansfield’s tragic demise on the set of The Warren’s of Virginia was the basis for this Woolrich story from Dime Detective in November of 1934. Woolrich would tweak this one and release it in a different form in one of his collection in the 1950s. Though well written, it’s more famous I believe for the thinly veiled fictional account of the actual freak tragedy. Still a good read, just not my favorite here.

RED LIBERTY

Originally slated to appear in a collection of stories about New York called Landmark Series, which never made it to print, this terrific little Woolrich gem was published in Dime Detective in July of 1935. It is a very fun pulp read which works as a detective story, a mystery, and a short story of suspense. Like Preview of Death, Woolrich gave Red Liberty a facelift in the 1950s and retitled it The Corpse in the Statue of Liberty. Red Liberty in its original form, however, remains a very enjoyable short pulp story.

Second-grade Detective Denton’s nagging wife, Katie, thinks he’s a lowbrow. She further believes it’s preventing him from moving up faster in the ranks, and suggests he spend some time appreciating statues, of all things. To appease her he hops the ferry to the biggest statue he can think of, the Statue of Liberty. On his way up he meets a wheezing fat man and has a bonding moment with him when he discovers the petite woman he’s with is always pushing him to do such things.

The moment becomes important when the young woman arrives at the top, but the fat man does not. Turns out he doesn’t arrive at the bottom either — not even by the quick but deadly scenic route. When Denton finds the fat man’s hat, he knows in his gut something is terribly wrong.

What follows is a fast-flowing and fun-to-read mystery as the second-grade detective, unsure of himself and his abilities at first, slowly comes into his own trying to discover what happened to the man. When Denton finally discovers what happened to the fat man, the story really takes wing, as the detective decides to figure it out before the Feds become involved.

Red Liberty is a nifty little gem for my money. It has a very 1930s New York vibe, and nice touches like Denton calling the elevator operator Suicide Johnny, because the young man would be almost grateful for a jumper, just to relieve his boredom.

What’s that strange thing the alleged wife wrote at the top of the Statue of Liberty? Can Denton figure it all out and make the collar before the Feds become involved? If he does, will it give him the confidence he needs?

In tone and pacing Red Liberty is a cross between Woolrich’s Mystery in Room 913, and Death Sits in the Dentist’s Chair. Definitely one that any true Woolrich fan won’t want to miss.

MURDER, OBLIQUELY

“Jean collects people, as a velvet evening wrap collects lint.”

This time out, we get the rewrite, as the first incarnation of this story was Death Escapes the Eye, from The Shadow Mystery Magazine of 1947. As mentioned in the forward to this one, it was one of the last stories where Woolrich chose to tell the story from the woman’s point of view — Annie Ainsley — because it suited the story best.

Murder, Obliquely is at once a tremendously fine piece of writing, but also a story that feels, well, oblique. It’s murder alright, but the reader comes at it sideways, and the angle is so sharp and obscuring neither we, nor the protagonist, ever see a body. No one is arrested, and perhaps never will be. Yet we know…

Annie Ainsley’s friend Jean Medill. Jean is married to Cipher, but quite cavalier about her flirtations. This leads to a friendly rivalry of sorts over Dwight Billings, whom Annie can easily see is in love with a gold digger. And of course, Annie falls desperately in love with him.

A door in a hallway, and a tremendously well written scene as Annie reveals her feelings to Dwight are the real highlights of this novelette. The ending remains true to the title. Though I’d have much preferred a more conclusive, traditional ending, and this isn’t a favorite of mine from the Woolrich canon, in it’s own way this is a stunning piece of short fiction.

SUMMATION

A must-have for Silent as the Grave and All at Once No Alice, everything else here is just a bonus, with Red Liberty being the most fun in my opinion, followed closely by After Dinner Party. Top-notch stuff.… (more)

As noir and suspense and crime tales in general began to loose their way in our time, they became graphically brutal, dismal and sleazy, often narrated by and/or peopled by unredeemable characters and/or psychotics, the darker, furthest fringe of noir/crime stories creeping ever closer to the mainstream center to slowly smother with a pillow and suffocate the more literate and classier styles of writers like Cornell Woolrich and Fletcher Fora, from halcyon days for the genres. This resulted from a concerted effort to pander to a desensitized and decaying society so desirous to wallow in the aforementioned they would embrace nothing else. The sublime short stories of writers like Flora, and the short stories and novels of the man who created his own genre of noir suspense, Cornell Woolrich, have become victims of the slide, their stories now more obscure, moved toward the fringes as the uglier and less worthy fringes moved toward the center.

At least some of Flora’s great short stories of noir mystery and crime have found a small life on Kindle. Woolrich is considered the master, many of his big novels and even short stories being adapted to film, so he has fared somewhat better. He still doesn’t merit but a rare, limited print edition on real paper every blue moon, but he is available on Kindle, and readers are better off for it.

Not only are Woolrich’s famous novels available electronically, but many of his best short works are available now in Kindle collections. Because he wrote everything from weird menace to whiz-bang pulp crime, fatalistic romance wrapped in a mystery or crime, readers can get a sense of his great — and I mean GREAT talent, his prose and ability to draw a reader into his world, and the tale he was spinning on display in many shades. Raymond Chandler likened some of the best Woolrich tales to a “Fever Dream.”

I’M DANGEROUS TONIGHT

“She closed the door, and moved down the circular stone-stairs with a rustling sound, such as a snake might make on a bed of dry leaves.”

I had previously read all the stories in this one with the exception of I’m Dangerous Tonight. Though a huge Woolrich fan, I wasn’t sure I was going to like this one at first. Woolrich was spinning a tale that bordered at first on horror; not normal horror, but supernatural horror. But knowing from reading so many of his other works the classy restraint he always showed as he unwound his literary — even his pulp was literary — stories, I kept going even after a particularly atmospheric opening vignette contained a disturbing scene that in another writer’s hands would have turned me off. In sticking with it I found the pot of gold.

What initially appears to be a series of vignettes, thinly tied together by the evil creation of a Paris designer, Maldonado, which transforms anyone who wears it — even touches it — into a dark-hearted and manipulative killer, slowly becomes more — much more. A cop named Fisher, a crook named Belden and his dame, and an old score to settle tie this all together into a gritty little literary noir tale as well as a tale of the supernatural garment.

From a writer’s standpoint it’s stunning how Woolrich pulls this off. From a reader’s standpoint it’s terrific. There is the same type of episodic feel to this lengthy yet satisfying noir as in one of Woolwich’s famous Black novels, Black Alibi. It’s marvelous if you love classy traditional noir and a weird tale touched with the supernatural. You have to persevere, get into the flow of what Woolrich is doing, but once you do, you’ll be rewarded by an exciting conclusion as only Woolrich could write it. Terrific stuff!

JANE BROWN’S BODY

This novelette has an odd narrative voice that is startling for Woolrich, who had a special knack for such — and as much as I love nearly everything he wrote, from fatalistic to whimsy — I can only recommend this one for Woolrich completists.

You accept coincidence and some implausibility when reading Woolrich, because he’s so entertaining you don’t care. There’s quite a bit here, but even that is made more palatable because here he is telling a story which borders on Science Fiction. I can hardly believe I’m saying this, because there’s no bigger fan of his work, but it isn’t the story that let me down here on this one — the premise, in fact, is terrific — but the execution.

More than any other writer I’ve ever read — only Robert Nathan is in the same stratosphere — Woolrich was genius at finding the right voice (male or female) from which to tell the story. If first-person worked best, or third-person, that’s where he went. Here, the narrator feels like some unseen person relating a minute by minute account of the story as it unfolds. Because we’re not hearing it from O’Shaughnessy’s head, nor Nova’s — which would have been difficult, but interesting — we don’t get any warm connection to them, or the story. As pure pulp, it’s okay, but as Woolrich, it’s subpar.

The opening is atmospheric enough, as we follow a man racing through the night with a sleeping woman — though she may not be just sleeping — in the back of the car. But that narrative voice I mentioned, and the odd tone Woolrich gives it is distracting from the get-go. Eventually we change scenes to O’Shaughnessy, and the story begins unfolding.

The real story concerns a scientist named Denholt, who has created a serum for revivification. At a remote location, a young woman named Nova, who is sweet and child-like, is trapped. When O’Shaughnessy survives a plane crash he happens upon the lovely Nova. This leads him to Denholt. What follows is a tale of escape, tremendous coincidence once they do, and the revelation that Nova must return…

The ending should be poignant, deeply sad, but that odd narrative tone has kept us distanced from the heart of either character. While that isn’t unusual for pulp, it’s unusual for Woolrich. Worth reading for fans, but I suspect the average reader will find this odd and hokey. A rare one from the master that just doesn’t hold up well.

MYSTERY IN ROOM 913

Mystery in Room 913 is a near perfect little pulp mystery/suspense story. Despite the brevity of the tale — which is in the seventy-page ballpark — you get a clear impression of the characters from the moment you meet them, an atmosphere for the setting, and a deep curiosity for what’s behind the mystery of room 913 which will keep you turning pages.

The hotel detective, Striker, is first on the scene when Room 913 claims its initial victim. It’s framed as a suicide but Striker believes it was murder. A year later, a second man suffers the same fate, through the same window, and again a brief, unsigned note allows the very same city detective to write it off as a suicide. Striker knows better, as do others in the hotel, who have begun to suspect something out of the ordinary — perhaps supernatural — is going on in room 913.

Why can you feel a depression in 913? Why does a dog who never whines do so only moments before the victims plunge to their death? What about the devil-mask Striker discovers in a tenant’s room? What to make of the smell of sandalwood? And what to make of the lightning someone claims to have seen at the exact same moment one of the men met his fate? The victims are always single check-ins, never a couple. Striker, frustrated that the copper won’t look into it any further, knows it is only a matter of time before room 913 strikes again.

Some investigation, and a ruse is perpetrated by Striker in order to prevent another death, but the best laid plans don’t always work. Striker’s obsession to know the truth about room 913 leads to an exciting climax and, some would say, fantastically implausible solution.

Written during the 1930s and set during that period, it’s a bit pulpy, but great fun!

THE MOON OF MONTEZUMA

Poetically sad, it’s difficult to categorize this intoxicatingly atmospheric short story by the great Cornell Woolrich. There is a murder, yet it is not a murder mystery, for the reader witnesses the murder. There is perhaps fate taking a hand to set things right for the victim, yet this is not one of his tales about the struggle against fate…Unless, of course, you consider that two people are fated to be together, no matter what form that love must take.

Woolrich sucks the reader in immediately, as a young blonde American with a baby is dropped off by a taxi driver in a remote part of Mexico. Frightened and alone, she makes her way to a house that seems to belong to another time. She is looking for Bill Taylor, the father of her baby. She is utterly alone, and far from anything American or remotely familiar. Just how far is made clear when she knocks on the door and encounters an old woman, and a young beautiful one named Chata. Chata’s dark eyes hold in them the same implicit cruelty as the older woman’s. They are of the Anahuac, and the differences in culture will lead to murder. But then fate takes a hand. And of course, as there is in any tale from the master, there is great coincidence which triggers what is to come.

I can’t really say more without risk ruining the poetically sad conclusion for the reader. The Moon of Montezuma is like a poetic ode to the darkest side of love, its reach so encompassing even death cannot stop it. There is great beauty here, but its smothered in very deep sadness.

First appearing in Fantastic Magazine in November-December of 1952, this story is dripping with atmosphere. There is an aloneness the reader can feel in their soul on these pages, and something primal which goes far beyond cultures. Woolrich spent a good deal of his youth in Mexico and he captures the feel of this lonely and isolated place and its people, but also the feelings of the young American woman with the child, so lost and desperate in what to her is a strange world.

This sad story will linger in your soul long after you turn the final page.

SUMMATION

This collection gets a solid four stars. I had to in honesty take away half a star because of the narrative voice in Jane Brown’s body. The other half star deduction is because I’m judging Woolrich against Woolrich. While the other three stories are wonderful in different ways, I think they’re probably most enjoyable to the Woolrich fan. What I mean by that is that as Woolrich collections go, this one is essential, but, I wouldn’t recommend making it your first dive into anything Woolrich.

That’s a compliment, not a slight. Anything Woolrich is worth reading because he was a wonderful writer, as unique as any who ever penned a story. He is one of my all-time favorite writers, in fact. I love three of the four stories in this collection for varying reasons, but I’d perhaps make it a later pickup, after you’ve read more of his work and have a better understanding of just how special he was as a writer.… (more)

In an unnamed midwestern town, Johnnie meets with his girlfriend every evening at 8 on the dot, in from of the drugstore. One evening he's a few minutes late, and discovers that she's been killed. Grief-stricken, he goes kind of nuts, and for months stands in front of that same store every evening, until one day a heartless cop drives him away. The story shifts to an unnamed character (but always with the same JM initials as Johnnie) who takes jobs at small airlines, gathering information, and then the revengeful murders start, always of young women, with cruel taunting. It's a fascinating novel, as you can always see its general outlines as it moves, but not the whys, until very near the end. A human novel, with empathy for all the characters, and Woolrich always writes vividly and pulls you through the story.… (more)