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In Woolrich's iconic tale, Detective Tom Shawn saves a lovely young woman from a suicide attempt one night, and later hears her story. She is in despair because the death of her wealthy father has been predicted by a confident man seemingly gifted with the power of clairvoyance; a man whose predictions have unerringly aided her father in his business many times before. Shawn and a squad of detectives investigate this dire prediction and try to avert the millionaire businessman from meeting his ordained end at the stroke of midnight. One of Cornell Woolrich's most influential novels, this classic noir tale of a man struggling with his ability to see the future is arguably the author's best in its depiction of a doomed vision of predestination.
Born George Hopley-Woolrich, Cornell Woolrich (1903-1968) is the pen name most often employed by one of America's best crime and noir writers, whose other pseudonyms included George Hopley and William Irish, the moniker under which Waltz into Darkness was first published. His novels were among the first to employ the atmosphere, outlook, and impending sense of doom that came to be characterized as noir, and inspired some of the most famous films of the period, including Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window, Francois Truffaut's The Bride Wore Black, The Phantom Lady, and celebrated B-movies such as The Leopard Man and Black Angel.
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