“There’s death at our shoulders all the time. Every minute, every second.” Those lines encompass the hot, sweaty fear that envelops Cornell Woolrich's Waltz Into Darkness.

This disturbing — nearly depraved — lesson in obsessive love tracks the hapless Louis Durand, a 19th-century New Orleans coffee merchant who is literally torn asunder by his passion for predatory femme fatale Julia Russell. Determined to conquer both Durand and the sexism that plagued the late 1800s, Julia is not who she seems, cloaking a hidden agenda beneath a beautiful face, a winsome smile, and an irresistible charm of manner.

Woolrich puts his own inimitable stamp on the story, garnishing it with the breathless twists and sweaty anxiety that became his stock-in-trade. With Waltz into Darkness, Woolrich develops fully formed characters who lead us by the hand down a treacherous path that ends with a jaw-dropping jolt.

Francis M. Nevins' introduction puts the novel into its proper perspective.

“A waltz for life,” Durand's paramour tells him on their wedding night. “A waltz with wings. A waltz never ending.”