Customer Reviews

The Bride Wore Black (Black Dagger Crime)

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If anyone ever wanted to cite a story that would best illustrate the observation that revenge is a dish best served cold, then I think this one would fill the bill. As a story of revenge, it's a classic with the big mystery being, what on earth could have happened to prompt such violence.

The person who is seeking revenge is Julie Killeen. She is a beautiful woman, but she's also a careful, cold-blooded killer. She is on an unstoppable mission of painstakingly tracking down, stalking and then murdering men before casually walking away, unconcerned about whether or not she leaves any witnesses. She gives little away as she carries out the murders, although she does feed us with snippets of information which merely serves to add to the mystery surrounding her actions and drives us on to find out more. None of her victims seem to recognise her, nor do they seem to have anything in common with one another, which also adds greater interest to the event that started her off.

Attempting to track Julie down is Lew Wanger, the detective who, while not exactly hot on her trail, is the only one who believes the murders are related. It's through him that the pieces are put together forming a coherent chain of events helping us understand what went on in the past to cause the events of the present.

This is a captivating story told in the typically brutal fashion of the hardboiled genre. The unexpected ending caps off this highly entertaining book very nicely indeed and I found myself well and truly put in my place, just as I was congratulating myself for having figured everything out.

She was a mystery dame if ever there was one. Julie Butler was what she called herself, or sometimes Josephine Bailey, or Mrs. Baker. But to the men she met her real name spelt D-e-a-t-h. The author introduces the heroine of this quintessential noir novel, looking out of her hotel window one night: "She seemed to lean toward the city visible outside, like something imminent, about to happen to it." Although Woolrich was one of the founders of the noir genre, his name is not so famous as that of Chandler or Hammett. This is to be the first reprint in a laudable series, repositioning Woolrich as "America's Master of Suspense", with "Phantom Lady" coming out in august. The cover is magnificent, even better than it looks on this page. The only thing the editors have forgotten is to put in the original year of publication, but then again, this femme fatale in black ("Where have I seen her before", one of the characters wonders, "those ice-cold eyes, that kissable mouth?") is of course timeless.

Raymond Chandler (The Big Sleep), James M. Cain (The Postman Always Rings Twice), and Cornell Woolrich were among the creators of the noir genre of crime fiction in the 1930s and 1940s. This uniquely American literary genre had its roots in the terse, violent, and often poorly written pulp fiction. More talented, innovative writers evolved a dark, modern mythology that exploited themes of crime, guilt, deception, obsession, and murder.

I am familiar with other classics of noir genre, but The Bride Wore Black was my first introduction to Woolrich. The innocuous beginning, a young woman leaving home with no particular destination in mind, transitioned rapidly into an audacious, calculated, carefully planned murder without any apparent motive. Woolrich shifts the perspective back and forth from character to character, adeptly disguising the inner thoughts of the killer. Unlike the police who are uncertain whether the deaths are accidental or deliberate, we readers know it is murder, but not how the victims are chosen. I was unprepared for the ending.

The Bride Wore Black has been often republished and you should not have difficulty finding a copy.

Many novels and short stories by Cornell Woolrich have been adapted to the screen (the most notable was Rear Window), radio, and TV. I Married a Dead Man, Phantom Lady, and his `Black' series of suspense novels were among his best works.

Cornell Woolrich is one of those 1940s writers who pumped out loads of pulp fiction that have by now largely gone out of print. He was a very good storyteller but only an average writer - that is, his prose and characterizations are not particularly good. 'The Bride Wore Black' fits this rule completely.

In 'The Bride Wore Black' we have essentially five different murder stories with one seemingly common element: the same murderess. In the end we understand a bit more about her motive and why these victims were chosen. Woolrich also delivers a delicious surprise ending. Don't expect any subplots or side romances. This is pure, simple reading enjoyment that doesn't tax the brain but keeps your eyes glued to the pages.

Bottom line: certainly among Woolrich's better books. Highly recommended.

I've been trying to track down this book for a number of years after hearing Tarantino may have taken the Kill Bill story directly from the book. The similarities are striking...in both, an unnamed woman tracks and kills the five assassins who killed her husband on their wedding day.

The differences are more interesting to me and have made me reflect on the evolution of the vigilante hero.

For one, the Bride in the book isn't a Kung-fu fighter killing female assassins in brutal sword fights. Instead, the book's Bride is an everyman character who's on the hunt for five men. She kills by outsmarting her targets by playing off both their egos and their ideals of a perfect woman. The book really shines through in these parts by making the reader wonder just how she'll ensnare her next target.

From here on out, my review has MAJOR SPOILERS.

The book falls apart with the twist ending and the discovery the five targets weren't assassins at all, just five drunkards in the wrong place at the wrong time. Unfortunately, this means they were innocent men. I say unfortunate because these are the least likable five men in the history of fiction. Each one is a miserable, irredeemable character and it's hard to accept they'd function in normal society. The detective in charge of the case is also completely unlikable and it's disappointing he's vindicated.

The plot twist itself makes very little sense. A minor character who happens to know some of the victims turns out to have been the gunman who killed the groom at the exact second the five drunkards drove past the wedding. I have to assume contrived plot twists were common in novels in 1940. I can't think of any other reason something so stupid could be accepted.

The revelation the Bride was a villain all along made me reconsider modern heroes. Now, the audience not only empathizes with a woman out to kill the men who killed her husband, they cheer it. Lisbeth Salander is the female literary hero of the moment and she brutalizes any man dumb enough to mess with her. But, not too long ago, trust in the police trumped all and a vigilante was seen as a villain, not a hero. I took it for granted the Bride was the hero and the detective was simply there for narrative exposition, but I think that's because I'm used to stories like that.

END SPOILERS

Overall, the book was very enjoyable for the first 95%. The characters are thinly developed to keep the plot moving at a brisk pace, but it's quite the plot, so I'm ok with it. I really enjoyed how the male targets were fleshed out through the Bride exploiting their weaknesses. I wish the plot twist didn't exist, but at least we have the superior Kill Bill movies to watch.

you may not have heard of woolrich, but he travelled the same dark streets as noir's best.