The Bride Wore Black

The Bride Wore Black by Cornell Woolrich
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

One by one, men are dying, deaths that at first seem accidental. The only link between the deaths are that each of the victims was last seen in the company of a woman. How are the men connected? Is it the work of one woman or several? And can the police stop the murders before another man ends up dead?

The Bride Wore Black is a great work of suspense. Woolrich does a good job of building the tension and maintaining an unpredicatable feel. The murders were believably done and Woolrich's writing was more than up to the task. Once the Bride's motivation was revealed, everything made sense. While I knew she'd be caught, the twist at the end still threw me for a loop. A note of caution: If your edition has a forward, DON'T READ IT! Mine had a foreward that was spoiler-laden.

One of the features I liked most was the structure. Each group of chapters started with the setup, followed by the murder, followed by the police investigation. I plan on swiping the structure sometime in the future.

If you like noir tales of revenge, this is the book for you.

Later: This is the one work of Woolrich's that I've read that has stuck with me long after I finished reading it.

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