Phantom Lady

Step into Gotham City circa 1947 where you take a few steps into a local pub to get away from your wife, and by chance meet an interesting young lady, take her a few other night spots, then come home, and bang, your wife is dead! Not pleasant, especially when you can find no one in the great city to vouch for your alibi! The police arrive, and their suggestion that you may be the culprit is enough to give you the creeps. And the police detective in charge happens to be a good friend from way back, who also does not seem convinced of your innocence. So, you have 24 hours to prove yourself and the clock keeps ticking into the moment when your life may very well be through! This great thriller/ noir author spun many hard boiled tales where the lead character seems guilty, and has to prove his innocence, a nice twist on the "innocent before proven guilty" idea on which our system is (supposedly) based. PHANTOM LADY may be his best!

'Phantom Lady' by Cornell Woolrich (as William Irish) is an extremely enjoyable pulp fiction read. While the author is known for his storytelling abilities rather than literay skills (prose/characterizations), and he has written plenty of shoddy and ridiculous stuff, 'Phantom Lady' is a classic page-turner. I personally rate this on par with his excellent 'Waltz Into Darkness' as his best (..or at least among the dozen Woolrich novels I've read, plus many more short stories). In 'Phantom Lady' we have a man wrongly accused of murder (of his wife) sitting on death row. The only person who can verify his alibi is a nameless and non-descript woman he shared an otherwise forgettable evening with. As the clock ticks towards his final hour we are entertained with a mad chase to find this woman. Believable? Let's just say it's all barely plausible, which was enough to keep this reader thoroughly entertained. Bottom line: a real treat for Woolrich fans. A must read.

When you see an opening chapter of a book titled `The Hundred and Fiftieth Day Before the Execution', as this one is, you get an immediate impression of what lies ahead, as well as a sense of inevitable doom. I found this to be a very clever method of piquing the interest, compelling me to read on.The man facing execution is Scott Henderson, and we meet him as the story opens when he picks up a girl in a bar based solely on her outrageous hat. For some reason he's in a foul mood and pays her little attention, even though he takes her out to dinner, a theatre show and then back to the bar. When he gets home to his apartment he is greeted by the police...and the body of his strangled wife. Things start getting really interesting from here on out.We find the story revolving around the careful recounting of Scott Henderson's movements on that night as he desperately tries to establish an alibi. As the title of the book suggests, the lady he was with that night has disappeared, leaving him in deep trouble. Chapter by chapter the clock ticks down building tension and adding an enormous feeling of desperation to the search. Three people, each of whom is willing to put themselves in danger to see that justice is served, conduct the search for that elusive alibi. Firstly, Henderson's girlfriend / mistress gets herself deeply involved, at times placing herself in extreme danger. The second person is an old school friend who Henderson calls, in the belief that he is the only person who would care enough to help. And thirdly, and most surprisingly, is the police officer that was instrumental in seeing Henderson convicted. He begins to hold grave misgivings about his guilt and provides the impetus behind their quest.Cornell Woolrich expertly weaves an exhausting tale as lead after lead is explored in an all out effort to save Scott Henderson's life. As can be expected, given the nature of the chapter titles, the story culminates in a nail-biting ending, making it a most satisfying reading experience.

I am making my way through noir writers, starting with one of each by Goodis, Gil Brewer, Peter Rabe and now Woolrich. This book was a pleasant suprise and I'll come back around to read more by Woolrich, one of the fathers of the genre.The previous reviewer gave a good description of the story-all I'll add is that the writing is good, the story timeless, the plot suspenseful and the book is just an all around good read.

Cornell Woolrich or William Irish, the pseudonym he used for this title and others, was the master of dark intense suspense novels, filled with nightmare circumstances thwarting average people's lives. One such tale is PHANTOM LADY wherein Scott Henderson is the hapless soul beleaguered by a dead wife, strangled with his own necktie, and by the police demanding to know his alibi. The only hope he has is the dim memory of a woman in a pumpkin colored hat complete with a huge feather he chatted with in a bar after the argument with his wife. But because he hasn't a name nor a description, other than the hat, the police aren't quick to believe him and when witnesses to their conversation all claim she was never there, his world spirals into an inexplicable nightmare.You won't find a suspense novel as tight, swift and dark as this around much anymore and read in the spectacularly reproduced original dust jacket art and meticulously recreated boards, the experience might only be matched if you were able to own an original gem. But then who could afford to? Much better to read this masterpiece as the facsimile!