Originally published in 1940, Cornell Woolrich’s The Bride Wore Black is interesting (at least to me) more as a study of mid-century mysteries and how much the genre has changed in the last 80 years. This twisty mystery is all about creating seemingly impossible murders than it is about psychological depth, fair play, or realism. This book is very much in the vein of Golden Age mysteries that readers inhaled by the thousands until mystery writers started adding layers to their characters; exploring the psychology of perpetrators, victims, and investigators; and hewing much closer to reality.

There is a mysterious woman killing men in Chicago, sometime before 1940. At first, all we know is that she has a list of names and that she’s lying about her own name. The next chapters reveal this woman to be a master (mistress?) of disguise, able to change even her personality, to lure in the men on her list. She is able to kill three men over the course of almost two years before other detectives start to listen to the one member of their number who thought that the deaths were all connected murders. Once that happens, the twists start coming hard and fast and we, finally, learn why our killer is bumping off all these ordinary men.

What I liked most about The Bride Wore Black was the way it introduced us to slices of pre-World War II American life. The killer’s victims include a society gentleman, an middle class family man, and a Bohemian artist. Each murder is preceded by pages describing their lives, their milieux, and the ways that the murder uses to get close enough to kill them. So even though the plot is racing along, I felt a bit like a time-traveling archaeologist taking peeks at 1940-ish Chicago.

All that said, I found the ending of The Bride Wore Black to be very jarring. I had been pretty forgiving up until that point about the skimpiness of the character development and the believability of the plot, but the ending was too clever for its own good.

Dramatic, sinister and enthralling mystery which I read in one sitting. I've not read any Cornell Woolrich before, and I shall definitely look out for more. Very film noir.

No one , no one, writes classic noir like Woolrich. If he didn’t invent what we know as classic American noir fiction, he came pretty close. And this is his seminal work in the area. Mysterious, dark, and completely subject to fate , the lives of the characters here defy normalcy and convention. And that is why the plotting is so weird. Just read it and then read his other works. Thanks to American Mystery Classics for bringing This great book back in a cool edition.

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with this book in exchange for my honest opinion. This will be available on January 21st, 2021.

I’ve heard Cornell Woolrich being spoken of as the father of the crime novel, so I jumped at the chance to read The Bride Wore Black. The plot is fairly simple: there are several murders that seem unrelated, except for the appearance of a mysterious woman, whom no one seems to recognize. It falls on Detective Wanger to solve the series of cases and stop the body count.

Unfortunately, this book was more problematic than enjoyable for me. The issue is, things that are unacceptable now (or at least, they should be) were commonplace when this book was written. Things have changed a lot since 1940. Nowhere is that more evident than in The Bride Wore Black. Racism and sexism were both very much a part of this book, in the casual sort of way that shows just how “normal” it was. For example, several men “good-naturedly” (the author’s word) tried to break down a dressing room door while a woman was changing. It was written as a natural, totally okay occurrence, which immediately put me off the book. Now, I know what some of you might be thinking: it’s an older book, and I need to assume these things will be there and take it in stride. Fair point. If I were able to get past the content (which was pretty much impossible for me), my review would be pretty much what follows.

Woolrich made some odd choices. Throughout the book, the reader is given both the who and the how of the murders; the only unsolved part is the why. I’m used to reading books where the identity of the killer isn’t known right away, so this was new to me. I felt a little cheated with so much information being already given. I like the tricky aspect of trying to solve the whodunnit. That being said, the why ended up being a doozy, completely unexpected and rather sad.

If the excess of freely given information seemed odd, the methods of the killings were downright bizarre. The oddest one involved a killer disguised as a kindergarten teacher: the victim thinks it’s absolutely normal for his child’s kindergarten teacher to show up uninvited to cook him dinner while he puts his feet up and reads the paper (see what I mean about the book being problematic?) . I found myself wondering how someone who was so lacking in common sense managed to live so long in the first place. I couldn’t view the murderer as diabolical, smart, or even as much of a threat because the way the murders were committed were so incredibly weird.
I was bummed that we saw so little of Detective Wanger. There would be several chapters involving the killer, then a small aside featuring the detective. There is no opportunity to get to know the character, which was rather disappointing. At least he didn’t immediately discount the idea of a female killer based on gender.

As I’ve mentioned, the ending was surprising and creative. I could see a little bit of why the author is seen as one of the original driving forces in the detective novel genre. It felt like the precursor for later books in the genre. Unfortunately, that wasn’t enough to make this book enjoyable for me.

Needless to say, I definitely don’t recommend this book, although it could just be an issue of the reader not matching the writing. It happens.

A golden era thriller that is the top of the genre.
I hope this book finds a new audience.
I voluntarily reviewed an advance reader copy of this book.

Superb, Classic Literary Noir,
Superb classic literary noir. A tale of suspense like no other. An obsession, a deadly personal agenda, a unique methodology. Who is this beautiful lady? Creating tension in spades from the first page to the last with supreme use of language and a taut plot, this author was top of his game. An excellent read.

A wonderful tale of revenge wherein the motive lies back in the past. The narrative is separated into into each of the victims and always begins with the arrival of "the bride" before we get into the details of each murder. However, it is not until we reach the very last that things are not so clear and motive and the final denouement do not reach us until the very last pages - even then, things take a turn.

Well worth exploring - and I look forward to more from the series.

The Bride Wore Black is just the book I have been searching for. For years I have tried to find that one elusive book that could thrill me and then just when I least expect it, start all over again. I developed a sense of urgency while at the same time hoping that my hunch was right. Well, to be honest, I was wrong every time. Someone is killing men in different ways yet the police cannot connect them. The eyewitnesses only know one thing and that is they do NOT know who the killer is other than she is a she and she is stunning. She is able to disguise herself in such a way that she is not recognized and can escape the scene undetected. This is a mystery like no other. I am hoping that this will be made into a movie. The author has created rich characters that emphasize each other in a way that I am not used to. I felt as though I was in a 1950’s thriller and it was amazing.

Thank you to netgalley as well as the author/publisher for allowing me to read this book in exchange for my honest review.