This omnibus contains three Woolrich books: Rear Window, a collection of short stories; I Married a Dead Man, a noir thriller and Waltz into Darkness a noir set in antebellum New Orleans. The first two is very good -- the third is not.

The short story collection includes the story that served as the basis of Alfred Hitchcock's movie. The story is every bit as compelling as the movie, with more of the raw edge that noir movies usually lack. The other stories are quite good, although like most story collections, it is a bit uneven.

I Married a Dead Man (filmed in 1950 as No Man of Her Own starring Barbara Stanwick) is probably the most well-constructed novel I have ever read. The story is standard noirish stuff -- a pregnant woman is left by her husband, the train she is taking back to San Francisco crashes, and she is accidentally mistaken for a different pregnant woman, one with a family that loves her and wants to take care of her. So she takes on a life that isn't hers.

The story itself is fine, but it's the writing that makes this a worthwhile read -- the prose is clear and strong, like Hammet at his best but without the vernacular. The form of the book is captivating. There are passages where the arrangement of the words on the page have meaning -- like poetry -- over and above the meaning in the words themselves (any more would constitute a spoiler, but if you read this or have read it, I'm referring to chapters 25, 26, 27 and to the preface and epilogue). This book is great.

Waltz into Darkness (filmed in French in 1969 as Mississippi Mermaid) is an interesting idea. Woolrich tries out the noir tropes in a very un-noirish setting. A coffee importer in New Orleans decides to marry his pen-pal -- in spite of the fact that she looks nothing like her picture when she shows up. Her behavior forms the central puzzle of the book -- who is she? and what is she trying to do? However it fails because it features the stupidest protagonist that ink was ever wasted on. From start to finish, his choices make no sense, and his central obsession -- with his wife -- is singularly stupid and pointless. It took me a long time to slog through this since he is so annoying.

Overall, I enjoyed this collection, in spite of my disappointment with the last novel. All of Woolrich's stories have a kind of claustrophobic paranoia about them that almost always turns out to be justified. They are also atmospheric, in a closed, limited sort of way that I found compelling. Well worth the read.