Waltz into Darkness (Crime, Penguin)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140239731 ISBN 13: 9780140239737

Publisher: Penguin Books, 1995

Middle-aged Louis Durand, whose fiance died 15 years ago on the eve of their wedding, decides to take one more chance on love and marry a woman he knows only through correspondence. When she arrives, she's younger and more beautiful that he had expected--and far more deadly.

About the Author:

Cornell George Hopley-Woolrich (born 4 December 1903 – died 25 September 1968) was an American novelist and short story writer who sometimes wrote under the pseudonyms William Irish and George Hopley. He is rated the fourth best crime writer of his day, behind only Dashiell Hammett, Erle Stanley Gardner and Raymond Chandler. A check of film titles reveals that more film noir screenplays were adapted from works by Woolrich than any other crime novelist, and many of his stories were adapted during the 1940s for Suspense and other dramatic radio programs. Woolrich's novels written between 1940 to 1948 are considered his principal legacy. During this time, he definitively became an author of novel-length crime fiction which stand apart from his first six works, written under the influence of F. Scott Fitzgerald.