De Maupassant once wrote: “There is nothing more beautiful and honorable than killing.” The Bride Wore Black offers grim and absorbing proof of that idea. Four men are murdered. Each time a woman they have never known comes into their lives. She appears briefly — she strikes — and disappears. There is never a trace of her left — not a fingerprint, not a clue. Four men are murdered. Four men whose lives do not touch, for whose deaths there is no conceivable reason. The police say, “Homicidal Maniac.” And yet — twice the woman risks her life to save another’s. Four men are murdered. And slowly, very slowly, the picture of the woman grows clearer to the police. She is beautiful, for only a beautiful woman would have worn the filmy black veil found clutched in the hand of the first man who dies. She is clever, for only a clever woman could have escaped from the hotel bedroom of her second victim. She is ruthless, for only a ruthless woman could have used a child’s toy to kill that child’s father. She is strong, for only a strong woman could have used such a weapon for her fourth murder. Four men are murdered. Then comes the fifth. And with it a denouement as breathtakingly exciting as a parachute jump and as extraordinary as the woman herself. The Bride Wore Black is a macabre and brilliant tour de force of crime fiction. It employs none of the usual tricks, yet the reader is enthralled. There are no suspects, no clues, yet the reader is tensely aware of mystery. There is only the woman, her victims, and the relentless drama of her life — a pale shadow that comes gradually into focus and is seen at last in brilliant outline