Wed 22 Jul 2026
Diary Review: CORNELL WOOLRICH – Death Is My Dancing Partner.
Posted by Steve under Uncategorized[7] Comments
CORNELL WOOLRICH – Death Is My Dancing Partner. Pyramid G374, paperback original; 1st printing, 1959. Savage Bride / Death is My Dancing Partner / Doom Stone, Centipede Press, hardcover, 2025.
Bandleader Maxwell Jones helps a dancer from an Oriental temple, then uses her erotic Dance of Death for fame and fortune, with coincidence and promotion adding to the legend as it builds. Her love for him is not returned; he does not even treat her as a person, a fact that does not seem believable, nor is her success in making him jealous.
After 100 pages, their strange love affair has been established, but by this time, his fear of her dance causes their common fortunes to decline: they are now living in the depths of a poor Panamanian café. The terror and suspense that has been promised thus far are confined to the last chapter only, as the dancer tests the curse of the dance, as they find themselves locked together in their hotel room…
To me, the story would have been better told as a shorter story, with the lengthy “love affair” eliminated. My rating below is almost only for the ending.
Rating: ***½
July 23rd, 2026 at 7:24 am
I went through a time in the 1970s where I read a dozen Cornell Woolrich books. The man was a gifted writer. Today, he’s sliding towards becoming a “forgotten” writer.
July 24th, 2026 at 5:54 pm
I really don’t know what the best way to gauge a mystery writer or his books might be, other than to check to see how many of his books are still in print. It really doesn’t matter, though, here and now, as I haven’t done that. But it’s my impression that you might have to call Woolrich a niche author — still remembered and thought highly of in a smallish circle of enthusiasts, and not known at all by anyone outside that circle.
It’s sad to have to agree with you. Woolrich was one of my most favorite writers in my youth, and yet, it’s been a long time since I’ve read anything at all by him.
July 25th, 2026 at 5:13 am
Like many noir authors, Woolrich wrote too much and was obsessed with the same topics. There are a few classics and a lot of second-rate “do-it-agains”, but enough people will probably encounter the classics to keep his name in front of us and disappoint people who read one and then choose at random.
July 25th, 2026 at 8:58 pm
Back in the 50s and 60s, EQMM always put his name on the cover whenever they published a new story by him, or even when they reprinted one, witch was a couple of times a year. As time went on, there were those who always seemed to use the Term “purple prose” when they talked about his work. It didn’t bother me all that much back, nor now, even though I knew exactly what they were talking about. It’s why I enjoy his work so much!
July 25th, 2026 at 4:18 pm
At Goodreads there are 2851 reviews. And neatly 20,000 ratings.
This is OK.
I prefer Woolrich’s detective tales, to his pure suspense tales.
July 25th, 2026 at 9:00 pm
Numbers like that are fine with me, too!
August 1st, 2026 at 3:29 am
Most of Woolrich is easily available in eBook form, and while I know some of you don’t consider that publishing at all, much less worthy of notice, I have to point out classic suspense, Sixties spy fiction (Helm, Gall, Callan, Philip McCutchan, George B. Mair, James Leasor, Andrew York et al), classic paperback and pulp writers, and Golden Age mystery fiction is all thriving in that format with many books that never made it into mass market paperback and in some cases were barely published in this country easily available now.
It is easier than it ever was in this country to find books by writers like Farejon, Punshon, Anthony Gilbert. Rhodes and Burton, Lorac, Ferrers, Roderic Jefferies also as Graeme, Anthony Armstrong, Bailey, Bude, Wade, Wynne, and even Sexton Blake, just not in hard print editions. Judging from the reviews and from the proliferation these books are doing quite well and winning new readers or there would be no profit in hunting them out to reprint.