Synopses & Reviews
"In this mesmerizing [novel] . . . not to be recommended for the weak-minded and impressionable" (), we encounter Guy Haines, a successful architect in the midst of a divorce, and Charles Anthony Bruno, a conniving psychopath who manipulates a chance encounter with Guy into a sadistic plot to swap murders. "Some people are better off dead," says Bruno, "like your wife and my father, for instance." As Bruno carries out his twisted plan, Guy becomes trapped in Patricia Highsmith's perilous world, where under the right circumstances anyone is capable of murder. Still her most iconic novel, elicits "the menace that lurks in familiar surroundings" () and the unsettling forces that tremble beneath the surface of everyday life.
Review
"Murder, in Patricia Highsmith's hands, is made to occur almost as casually as the bumping of a fender." New York Review of Books
Review
"Patricia Highsmith's novels are peerlessly disturbing." The New Yorker
Synopsis
Just in time for the centennial celebration of groundbreaking noir fiction writer Patricia Highsmith comes a reissue of her propulsive, engrossing debut, Strangers on a Train, with a new introduction by best-selling author Paula Hawkins. Guy Haines and Charles Anthony Bruno are passengers on the same train. Haines is a successful architect in the midst of a divorce, Bruno a mysterious smooth-talker with a sadistic proposal: he'll murder Haines's wife if Haines will murder Bruno's father. As Bruno carries out his twisted plan, Guy finds himself trapped in Highsmith's perilous world, where, under the right circumstances, ordinary people are capable of extraordinary crimes. The inspiration for Alfred Hitchcock's classic 1951 film, Strangers on a Train launched Highsmith's prolific career, proving her a master at depicting the unsettling forces that tremble beneath the surface of everyday life.
Synopsis
The inspiration for Alfred Hitchcock's classic 1951 film, the novel that established Patricia Highsmith as a master of noir fiction.
About the Author
Patricia Highsmith (1921-1995) was the author of more than twenty novels, including Strangers on a Train, The Price of Salt,