Phantom Lady - Softcover

Woolrich, Cornell

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1613470355 ISBN 13: 9781613470350

Publisher: Centipede Press, 2013

Synopsis

Phantom Lady is Cornell Woolrich at his best: a "wrong man" thriller compounded with a ticking clock (his execution) as well as shadowy femme fatales. In this new edition, Barry N. Malzberg, who was Woolrich's agent in the 1960s, and one of perhaps only two literary figures still living that knew Woolrich, provides a fascinating account of the man.

About this title

Review:

Penzler Pick, January 2000: It all started with Cornell Woolrich, whether using his own name or the pseudonym William Irish, if you're talking about creating suspense.

Take Phantom Lady, the first book under that pseudonym. Now, the idea is commonplace. You've read a dozen books and seen a hundred movies with the same plot idea, but this is where it began.

A condemned man, due to be executed for a crime he didn't commit, watches and feels the weeks and days and hours slip away as the moment of his execution approaches.

In case anyone reading the book doesn't quite get it, doesn't quite understand what it means to be able to count the hours before certain death, Irish begins each chapter with a time check. The first chapter is headed: "The Hundred and Fiftieth Day Before the Execution." Chapters 16, 17, and 18 state "The Eighth Day Before the Execution," "The Seventh," and "The Sixth." There are no other words in those chapters because nothing happens. But Scott Henderson is in jail and, so help me, the reader by now feels nearly the same tension that the poor guy must have been feeling. He didn't kill his wife, and he knows he didn't, and we know he didn't, but no one else knows. Oh, yes, one other person knows. The killer knows.

If you can't stand the suspense, don't read this book. If not knowing what is going to happen next, or in the end, makes you too tense, don't read this book. You won't be able to stand it. --Otto Penzler

About the Author:

Barry N. Malzberg: Barry Malzberg is a well-respected writer and critic of science fiction.

About this edition

• Publisher: Centipede Press
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 1613470355
• ISBN 13: 9781613470350
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 320