Rear Window and Other Stories by Cornell Woolrich; (4 1/2*); NOIR; hardcopy, IN WA;

He has been called 'The Prince of Darkness' & the inventor of the NOIR genre. He was an absolute brilliant author whose novels and shorts are simply genius. Of such as genius is his Rear Window. I am speaking, of course, of the one and only Cornell Woolrich. And the story which came before the also genius movie.

Our protagonist is a journalistic photographer who is laid up in his apartment with a broken leg. His apartment windows look out upon the inner courtyard of his complex and also looks in to all of the other resident's rear windows.
He has nothing to do as his leg is healing but to recline and watch the happenings going on in the other apartments and in the courtyard. As he watches the apartment across the way he notices that while the husband goes out to work each day the wife appears to be invalided within the bedroom. He never sees her rise except to talk with her husband when he returns from work each day and goes in to check on her, bring her meals, etc.
One day he notices that the husband is no longer going in to check on the wife and he no longer sees her sitting up in the bed. The husband appears to be spending his nights in the living space rather than the bedroom and he sees him there in the dark smoking, as his cigarette's red ash reflects in the dark.
His imagination begins to burn with all sorts of thoughts of what could be happening to or what has happened to the wife. And he takes it possibly further than it should go.
A fascinating read. ( )

If all you know of this short story is the film with Jimmy Stewart, you're in for a treat! Not that that's a bad film, mind you, but the tightness of the short story form gives an urgency and swiftness to the written word that contrasts with the almost agonizing slowness of the unfolding of events. The other stories in this volume are Post-Morten, Three O'Clock, Change of Murder, and Momentum, and are all excellent.