Repeat Performance (Black Gat, 33)

REPEAT PERFORMANCEBarney Page is wandering Manhattan from bar to bar in an alcoholic haze. He’s even sunk to sleeping in a Bowery flophouse. He used to be one of Broadway’s top actors, the toast of the town. But that was before his wife Sheila took an overdose of sleeping medicine and didn’t wake up. That was before he strangled his lover, Fern. That was before he found himself on a lower platform on the Grand Central subway, his options run out, his life completely forfeit, on the lam from the police, with only two friends left in the world. But what if he were given a second chance? What if he could live this last year all over again? What if he could change it all for the better…?

William O’Farrell was born William Buchanan Farrell in St. Louis, Missouri, on November 24, 1904, moving with his family to Pittsburgh in 1915. At age 16 he dropped out of school to work on the Pittsburgh Post, then in 1922 began traveling around Europe, eventually becoming a Merchant Seaman. Around 1936, O’Farrell settled in Santa Monica where he first became an actor before turning to writing. He is best known for the 1942 novel Repeat Performance, which was filmed in 1947, but he also wrote for TV shows such as Perry Mason, Thriller and Alfred Hitchcock Presents. O’Farrell won an Edgar in 1959 for his short story, “Over There, Darkness” which was turned into an Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode starring Bette Davis. He died in Los Angeles on March 27, 1962.