Hotel Room (US Edition)

Cornell Woolrich’s first novel out of the mystery field is a series of tricky to sketchy situational incidents which share in common Room 923 in the St. Anselm Hotel. New in 1896, when it is first opened, a bridal couple are among its first occupants- the groom to disappear into the night, a murder victim; in 1917, a soldier who has just enlisted engages the room, marries the girl he meets there, and arranges a postwar rendezvous with her only to meet again with constraint and decide- with relief- to end their marriage; in 1924, a gangster who has many enemies to fear faces an unsuspected nemesis in the mother who repudiates him; in 1929, a “”Mr. Smith””, a stock market casualty, decides to end his life but finds the way to a new one; and at the close, the young girl who had stayed there on her incompleted wedding night returns to the hotel- now a very old lady- to die….. Classed as “”an entertainment””, this- while facile diversion- is no more than that.