A point-by-point inversion of romantic idealism that’s still memorably disturbing 80 years on.
The founding novel by the founding father of American noir returns to print.
Woolrich (1903-1968) kicked off his Black series with this dark 1940 fantasy about a woman who targets five men for death for reasons that would be teasingly obscure if it weren’t for the title. Following the rule that “the really clever woman is all things to all men. Like the chameleon, she takes her coloring from his ideal of her,” Julie Killeen studies each of her targets at her leisure, discovers what they’re looking for in a woman, and then assumes that role. She crosses the path of man-about-town Ken Bliss just long enough to kill him. For the marginal recluse Mitchell, she poses as the partner in an impossible romance. Luring his wife away from home, she turns up on Frank Moran’s doorstep as his son’s solicitous kindergarten teacher. After posing as an irresistible model for the painter Ferguson, she sets her eye on her final target, the popular writer Holmes. Detective Lew Wanger has his suspicions about the murders even though the women who committed them seem to have little in common. Will he catch up with Julie before she finishes her work? After ratcheting up the tension bit by unnerving bit, Woolrich ends his tale with an ironic postmortem that casts Julie’s labors in an even darker light. The pattern behind her crimes is so stark, simple, and compelling that Woolrich couldn’t resist reprising it in Rendezvous in Black (1948), which readers may want to seek out if they’re still able to sleep after gulping this nightmare down.
A point-by-point inversion of romantic idealism that’s still memorably disturbing 80 years on.Pub Date: Jan. 5, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-61316-199-9
Page Count: 288
Publisher: American Mystery Classics
Review Posted Online: Nov. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2020
A satisfying thriller that will warm the hearts of fans who already take comfort in hating the forces of evil.
Lt. Eve Dallas’ 63rd futuristic case is less a whodunit than a manhunt for an unusually sympathetic killer.
Thirteen years ago, way back in 2048, scientific genius Steve Redman—father of the Banner-Wyst corporation’s Rainmaker Project—narrowly escaped death in a gas explosion that killed his pregnant wife and infant son and 200 other residents of their New York City apartment building the night before he planned to report his suspicions about the company to the FBI. Now the bill is coming due for Banner-Wyst. The first death to be discovered is that of Lawrence Chu, Redman’s colleague and trusted friend, whose tenure as director of bioengineering science ends when he’s beaten to death. For quite a while, Dallas and her partner, Det. Delia Peabody, know less about this mystery than their readers do. But when Ezra Dent, a consultant to Banner-Wyst who worked with Redman and Chu back in the day, is murdered in exactly the same ferocious way, Dallas and Peabody, with help from Roarke, Dallas’ tech-billionaire husband, promptly put the pieces together and determine who they’re looking for. The search for Redman, who went AWOL from his hospital bed without a trace six years ago, has its own challenges. So does Dallas’ attempt to get cooperation from partners Calvin Banner and Jacob Wyst, who are clearly in the crosshairs of a killer who seems a lot less monstrous than they are. If the breaks in the case are suspiciously convenient in arriving, readers can pride themselves on taking sides against a mega-corporation whose self-avowed ecological saintliness is undermined by its leaders’ underhanded dealing.
A satisfying thriller that will warm the hearts of fans who already take comfort in hating the forces of evil.Pub Date: Sept. 8, 2026
ISBN: 9781250414564
Page Count: 368
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 18, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2026
The delightful debut of a classic, prolific detective.
It takes a quirky sleuth to solve a baffling closed-door murder.
The author himself or, more accurately, some version of him, walks the reader through a “gruesome murder” that occurred in a rural farming village. At the center of the crime is the wealthy Ichiyanagi family, including the widow Itoko and her five children. The “heinous crime” occurs in the evening after the festive wedding of eldest son Kenzo to schoolteacher Katsuko. Yokomizo, part narrator and part raconteur, liberally shares digressions such as the fact that his favorite British author is A.A. Milne, who wrote The Red House Mystery as well as the books about Winnie-the-Pooh. Written in 1946 but set in 1937 before the devastation of World War II, this is the first novel featuring Kosuke Kindaichi, the legendary detective who appeared in more than 70 stories by Yokomizo. If Yokomizo is the Japanese Agatha Christie, Kindaichi may seem the Japanese Hercule Poirot—although actually, given his unkempt hair and apparently distracted manner, he’s more a cross between Poirot and Columbo. Shrewdly, his entrance is delayed until midway through the novel, after the police have stalled and both the family and the reader are anxious for a solution. The narrator’s garrulous charm, in a mystery long on logistics and forensic clues but short on detailed character portraits or extended interactions, is a key to the novel’s success, leavening the more intricate pieces of the puzzle. Armchair detectives will welcome the helpful character list that precedes the story.
The delightful debut of a classic, prolific detective.Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2026
ISBN: 9781805336549
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Pushkin Vertigo
Review Posted Online: July 20, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2026
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