Synopses & Reviews
A man. A woman. A kiss in the dark. That is how it begins. But before his nightmare ends, Prescott Marshall will learn that kisses and darkness can both hide evil intent—and that the worst darkness of all may be lurking inside him.
Lost for more than half a century and never before published under Cornell Woolrich's real name, Fright is a breathtaking noir crime novel worthy of the writer who has been called "one of the giants of mystery fiction" and "the Hitchcock of the written word."
Review
"A golden oldie from one of the hard-boiled kings." Library Journal
About the Author
Cornell Woolrich is widely regarded as the twentieth century's finest writer of pure suspense fiction. The author of numerous classic novels and short stories (many of which were turned into classic films) such as Rear Window, The Bride Wore Black, The Night Has a Thousand Eyes, Waltz Into Darkness, and I Married a Dead Man, Woolrich began his career in the 1920s writing mainstream novels that won him comparisons to F. Scott Fitzgerald. The bulk of his best-known work, however, was written in the field of crime fiction, often appearing serialized in pulp magazines or as paperback novels. Because he was prolific, he found it necessary to publish under multiple pseudonyms, including "William Irish" and "George Hopley"; it was under the latter name that he originally published Fright, and until Hard Case Crime's edition it has never appeared under his real name. Woolrich lived a life as dark and emotionally tortured as any of his unfortunate characters and died, alone, in a seedy Manhattan hotel room following the amputation of a gangrenous leg. Upon his death, he left a bequest of one million dollars to Columbia University, to fund a scholarship for young writers.