The Bride Wore Black by Cornell Woolrich (1940) — see its film and TV adaptations.
She was very mysterious. She could be sultry and blonde, prim with brown hair, a dazzling redhead or a gracefully aging matron. But there was no mystery about the fact that wherever she went, a perfectly ordinary man would die a violent, painful death. The basis of François Truffaut's 1968 film classic *The Bride Wore Black* is Cornell Woolrich at his best.
