I’m starting to develop the belief that the novelistic output of Cornell Woolrich can be broadly summed up in a single word: ‘Loss’. The six novels of his I’ve read so far all concern the desperate search for — and horror associated with — something either already lost or on the verge of being so, be it love, opportunity, or escape.  And The Black Curtain (1941) extends this theme by finding yet another string of loss to add to the great man’s bow in Frank Townsend’s misplacement of perhaps the most crucial of all things: himself. And, this being a work of suspense writing, when he starts to uncover what the eponymous curtain obscures, he’s not necessarily going to be thrilled with what he finds.