Last of the Black

Rendezvous in Black by Cornell Woolrich
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I had high expectations of this book as it is usually held up as one of Woolrich's better novels, the last of his "Black" novels. But he stretches credulity to an almost absurd length and asks us to buy into it. I also have trouble following the storyline sometimes because his subtlety is such that it's overlooked and I find myself rereading passages to figure out the implications.

The story opens when a young girl, waiting outside a drugstore for her beau, is killed by a whiskey bottle falling from the sky. The course of the novel is the boyfriend finding out who was responsible. It turns out there are five possible suspects. So he decides that all five must pay the price he did. The rest is as absurdly plotted, think I Married a Dead Man.

Now that I've read all of the "Black" novels I realize that it is indeed a series in theme, involving as they do revenge, serial killing and a searching for something lost to the protagonists.



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