The Phantom Lady - a Graphic Mystery Classic

I picked this book up earlier this year at the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair down in St. Petersburg.  I don't often pick up pulp novels, but the title of this one caught my eye.  "Phantom Lady" happens to be the name of a Golden Age comic book character who debuted back in 1941 in Police Comics No. 1.  She was a rich socialite who created a secret identity to fight crime by using a special light that could "shoot" darkness at her opponents, momentarily blinding them.  She was later acquired by DC Comics and incorporated into a team called the Freedom Fighters, which originally hailed from an alternate Earth where the Nazis won World War II.  I loved the concept, and I loved the character.  So, when I happened across this book at the Book Fair, I could not say no.  I had to have it.

 

The Phantom Lady is a murder mystery written by William Irish, which is a pseudonym used by Cornell Woolrich (Dec. 1903 - Sept. 1968).  This book was originally published in 1942, but this Graphic Mystery Classic edition that I have was published in 1955 (and, sadly, it is abridged, so I'm not really sure what parts I missed out on).  Interestingly, this book was made into a film in 1944, directed by Robert Siodmak and starring Franchot Tone, Ella Raines, and Alan Curtis (but judging from the description of the movie, it appears there were some changes made to the story).  In any event, I was anxious to read the story based on the taglines on the back of the book:  HIS WIFE? Now she lay dead, murdered! HIS MISTRESS? She was ready to die to save him from the electric chair! THAT LOVELY BARROOM PICKUP? She holds his fate in her teasing hands.

The mystery centers around Scott Henderson, an unhappily married man who wants a divorce so he can marry his mistress, Carol Richman; however, his wife refuses to give him the divorce, seeming to revel in her husband's unhappiness.  One fateful night, Henderson plans to take his wife out to dinner and the theater before begging her once again for a divorce, but she refuses at the last minute.  He calls Carol to ask her to go, but she is not home. So, Henderson sets out on his own, winding up in a nondescript bar sitting alone at the bar, drinking away his sorrows.  Until the mysterious woman appears.  And the two agree to an anonymous evening together.  Henderson takes her to the restaurant where he had reservations.  And he takes her to the theater, where she becomes quite the spectacle by wearing the same exact hat as the main star in the play.  They go their separate ways, and Henderson returns to his apartment to discover it is filled with police - and a very dead wife!  

Thus, the mystery really begins, as the police accuse Henderson of the crime, but he insists his innocence, trying to convince them of the woman that is his alibi.  Only, he doesn't know her name.  And he can't really remember her features, other than her dark clothes.  And that hat - that ostentatious orange hat.  He leads the police to the bar, but the bartender remembers no woman.  Henderson takes the police to the restaurant, but the maitre d' and the waiter only remember him - no woman.  Finally, they go to the theater, where no one remembers the woman.  Henderson believes he is going crazy, and despite his insistence that the woman exists, he is tried, found guilty, and sentenced to the electric chair.  And so the countdown begins (and each chapter is actually headed by the number of days left until his sentence is carried out...)

Irish (Woolrich) gives readers a rather tense murder mystery that builds increasingly strong as the day draws closer to the execution.  The police detective in charge of the investigation eventually tells Henderson that he believes he is innocent, but cannot prove it.  His mistress stands by his side the entire time, believing his innocence.  His best friend, John Lombard, comes all the way back from South America to help find this mystery woman and prove Henderson's innocence.  But the closer they get to the truth, the worse things become - especially when one witness throws himself in front of an oncoming truck, another witness breaks his neck falling down stairs, and a third witness is thrown out the window of her high-rise apartment.  When the day of the execution arrives, the author gives readers some great excitement as a trap is laid for the mysterious woman to reveal herself, and the true murderer is revealed at last!

The story is a little hard to get into at first, as the opening chapter attempts to be mysterious by not specifically identifying Henderson or the mysterious woman, and the writing is a bit awkward.  But as that initial evening proceeds, the writing smooths itself out and you start to become invested in the characters, particularly when Henderson arrives home to be confronted by the police detective and his men.  From that point forward, you can't help but want to know exactly what did happen and whether this mysterious woman was real or just a part of Henderson's imagination.  Irish (Woolrich) definitely keeps the readers guessing, and while the ultimate reveal is a surprise, there are portions of it that don't make sense (since the author does give us some scenes from the killer's point of view - before we know this person is the killer - and the explanations of what took place and how/why Mrs. Henderson was killed and how the killer tried to cover his/her tracks do not match the scenes we read earlier).  I suppose the author was simply wanting to keep the killer's identity a surprise, but it gave me a sense of bait and switch, since we read scenes earlier that don't match the final revelation.

Otherwise, this was a great story, and readers do get a nice payoff in the end.  I'm going to have to check out the movie to see just how much difference there is between the book and the film.

RATING:  8 glasses of scotch untouched by water out of 10 for a murder mystery that will keep you on pins and needles, waiting to see if the protagonist really is innocent or not!