What's in the Dark

hat's in the Dark? (1968)
aka hen Fell the Night

This killer is an expert. He has climbed ten stories in the Manhattan blackout, found and dispatched his victim amidst the men and women trapped in the building. The night drags on. Nerves wear thin and inhibitions disappear. Anyone, including a beautiful secretary with a yen for eye-patched Tim Corrigan, could be the lurking killer. Suddenly, out of the dark, a deadly hand strikes at Corrigan....

In one darkened corner of the office, a strait-laced spinster was giggling like a girl as an office Milquetoast made a grab for her. Across the room, two arch-enemies were drunkenly toasting their newborn friendship. And a sexy little secretary was passing out in the arms of a silver-haired executive.
The power failure was erasing more inhibitions than all of the booze in Manhattan. Even the corpse in the next room wasn't dampening the high spirits.
Suddenly a scream cut through the merriment. Tim Corrigan knew what it meant: a second corpse - and a secret madman who was fast becoming the death of the party.

What's In the Dark - cover pocket book edition, Popular Library N° 60-2269, 1968 (60 cents)

What's In the Dark - cover pocket book edition, Popular Library N° 445-01469-075, 1968

What's In the Dark - cover pocket book edition, Dale Books N° 01111, New York, 1978

What's In the Dark - cover pocket book edition, General N° 7737-B414-4, 1985

When Fell The Night - dust cover Gollancz edition, London, 1970

What's In the Dark - cover audiobook Blackstone Audio, Inc., read by Traber Burns, May 1. 2015

What's In the Dark - cover MysteriousPress.com/Open Road, September 29, 2015

Ghost-written by Richard Deming. Last of the series, and according to Nevins also by far the finest. The number of editions and translations seem to attest to that fact.

A philandering accountant is murdered in his office on the 21st floor of a high-rise tower a few minutes before the great East Coast power failure in the fall of 1965. When the lights go out, Corrigan and Baer are stranded on an island in the sky with the corpse still on the floor, an array of suspects trapped with them, and no chance of technical help from the NYPD. As the long night drags on, the killer strikes again. Deming exploits this fascinating premise to the hilt and caps it with a surprise solution marked by strict fairness to the reader, so that one might almost believe it was the work of Dannay and Lee. (Nevins)

Buio dopo buio - cover Italian edition, Mondadori, series Il Giallo Mondadori, April 6.1969

Mørkelagt mord - cover Danish edition, Rosenkilde, 2019

Stalo se ve tme - cover Czech edition, 2013, Naše vojsko

Um Alibi de Dez Minutos - cover Portuguese edition, Minerva, 1970

摩天楼のクローズドサークル (What's In the Dark) - cover Japanese edition, Hara Shobo, November 2015

What's in the dark?
(aka When fell the night) Translations:
Czech: Stalo se ve tmě
Danish: Mørkelagt mord
German: Mord verdirbt das Büroklima
Italian: Buio dopo buio
Japanese: 摩天楼のクローズドサークル
Portuguese: Morte No Escuro
(aka Um Alibi de Dez Minutos)
Spanish: ¿Qué acecha en la obscuridad?

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