I started reading Cornell Woolrich stories and novels in the 1970s. All in all, I preferred Woolrich’s short stories to his novels. He was a master of generating angst and suspense. Just sample some of the classic stories in Nightwebs by Cornell Woolrich (Author), Francis M. Nevins Jr. (Editor).
The problem with Maxim Jakubowski’s Black Is the Night: Stories in Tribute to the Author Who Inspired Hitchcock’s Rear Window involves setting the bar for the stories at the Cornell Woolrich level. That’s really high! To me, the only two stories that reach Woolrich’s quality are Martin Edwards’s “The Woman Who Never Was” and Bill Pronzini’s “The Long Road Down.”
Edwards’s “The Woman Who Never Was” starts with two grifters who are squatting in an apartment in an abandoned building. The woman leaves, saying she’ll be back in 5 minutes. But, she disappears. Her lover searches for her and discovers a world shifting Reality. A very Cornell Woolrich-type story.
Bill Pronzini’s “The Long Road Down” amps up the stress and tension as a man with a dead body in the trunk of his vehicle is trying to reach the work site where he plans to bury the body. Of course, he’s stopped by a policeman despite all his caution. Woolrich would have loved this story!
However, there are more misses than hits in Black Is the Night. There was only one Cornell Woolrich. This tribute volume is proof that his style of storytelling is rare indeed. GRADE: B-
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
INTRODUCTION / Maxim Jakubowski — 1
Why cornell Woolrich matters / Neil Gaiman — 4
The black window / Joel Lane — 6
Missing sister / Joe R. Lansdale — 8
A thin slice of heaven / Vaseem Khan — 12
Two wrongs / Brandon Barrows — 29
The husband machine / Tara Moss — 38
Black window / Kim Newman — 45
The man in the sailor suit / Nick Mamatas — 51
People you may know / Mason Cross — 84
The woman who never was / Martin Edwards — 75
First you dream, then you die / Donna Moore — 82
Eyes without a face / James Grady — 102
The case of Baby X / Lavie Tidhar — 115
The phantom gentleman / Barry N. Malzberg — 130
Parkview / James Sallis — 133
The lake, the moon and the murder / A.K. Benedict — 139
The jacket / Warren Moore — 151
The woman at the late show / Max Décharné — 162
The bride hated champagne / Paul Di Filippo — 178
Institutional memory / M.W. Craven — 188
Sleep! Sleep! Beauty bright / Charles Ardai — 202
The invitation / Susi Holliday — 221
The long road down / Bill Pronzini — 234
Our opera singer / Kristine Kathbryn Rusch — 244
What happens after the end / Maxim Jakubowski — 262
A shade darker than gray / Joseph S. Walker — 274
Trophy wife / Samantha Lee Howe — 288
Blue moon over Burgundy / O’Neil de Noux — 298
Red / David Quantick — 309
Looking for you through the gray rain / Ana Teresa Pereira — 325
New York blues redux / William Boyle — 338
ABOUT THE EDITOR / 383
ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS / 386
