Patricia Highsmith

Eine Mutter notiert in ihrem Tagebuch, was sie bewegt: Ihr Ehemann trägt sie auf Händen, Sohn Cliffie brilliert an der Elite-Universität Princeton; die Mädchen und die Firmen reißen sich um ihn. Edith selbst macht Karriere als Journalistin. Das ist die Welt, die sie gerne hätte. Doch was Edith Howland in ihrem Tagebuch notiert, sind Tagträume, ist eine Wunschwelt...

Rife with overtones of Dostoyevsky, The Glass Cell, first published forty years ago, combines a quintessential Highsmith mystery with a penetrating critique of the psychological devastation wrought by the prison system. Falsely convicted of fraud, the easygoing but naive Philip Carter is sentenced to six lonely, drug-ravaged years in prison. Upon his release, Carter is a more suspicious and violent man. For those around him, earning back his trust can mean the difference between life and death. The Glass Cell's bleak and compelling portrait of daily prison life and the consequences for those who live it is, sadly, as relevant today as it was when the book was first published in 1964."

Lisa, der verhätschelte Pudel eines kinderlosen New Yorker Ehepaars, verschwindet. Der Kidnapper fordert nicht nur Lösegeld. Die Hundebesitzer sollen stellvertretend büssen für alle, die ihn zu dem gemacht haben, der er heute ist. Der Routinefall gerät in die Hände eines blutjungen Streifenpolizisten, den die verschiedensten Motive bewegen, sich seiner anzunehmen. Aus einem fast harmlosen Streich erwächst eine beklemmende und gewalttätige Tragödie um Leben, Liebe und Tod.

The stories collected in Mermaids on the Golf Course are among Highsmith's most mature, psychologically penetrating works. As in the title story, in which a man's brush with death endows his everyday desires with tragic consequences, the warm familiarities of middle-class life become the eerie setting for Highsmith's chilling portrayals of violence, secrecy, and madness.

Guy Haines and Charles Bruno meet on a train. Because they're strangers they "can say anything they like" to one another. Bruno proposes the perfect murder: he will kill Guy's unfaithful wife if Guy will kill his much-hated father. Guy never imagines Bruno is serious. But Bruno is deadly serious.

Ein kleiner Ort an der tunesischen Küste. Ein amerikanischer Schriftsteller, der an einem Buch mit dem Titel Das Zittern des Fälschers arbeitet und ungeduldig auf Nachrichten von seiner Geliebten wartet. Ein schemenhafter Besucher im Dunkeln, dem der panische Schriftsteller seine Schreibmaschine entgegenschleudert. In gleißender Hitze, in einer fremden Welt, wo Leichen so schnell verschwinden wie tote Katzen, treffen die amerikanische und die arabische Seele aufeinander.

Der einzige Mensch, den er geliebt hat und der seinen Aufstieg hätte verhindern können, liegt bei San Remo auf dem Meeresgrund: Tom Ripley hat sich zum souveränen Verbrecher gemausert, der seinen Untaten das Flair französischer Lebensart zu verleihen weiß. Mit seiner Frau H?loise lebt er ein sorgenfreies Luxusleben bei Paris und handelt nebenbei mit berühmten Gemälden - nicht nur aus Liebhaberei. Als ein Kunstsammler die Gemälde als Fälschungen entlarvt, beginnt Ripley ein vampirisches Spiel mit anderen Existenzen, um seine schöne Welt - und seinen Kopf - zu retten.

Der einzige Mensch, den er geliebt hat und der seinen Aufstieg hätte verhindern können, liegt bei San Remo auf dem Meeresgrund: Tom Ripley hat sich zum souveränen Verbrecher gemausert, der seinen Untaten das Flair französischer Lebensart zu verleihen weiß. Mit seiner Frau H?loise lebt er ein sorgenfreies Luxusleben bei Paris und handelt nebenbei mit berühmten Gemälden - nicht nur aus Liebhaberei. Als ein Kunstsammler die Gemälde als Fälschungen entlarvt, beginnt Ripley ein vampirisches Spiel mit anderen Existenzen, um seine schöne Welt - und seinen Kopf - zu retten.

Obsessed with his love for Annabelle Delaney, David Kelsey tries to break up her marriage and succeeds in accidentally killing her husband.

Thirteen murder stories feature a jealous Siamese cat, a truffle-hunting pig, rebellious chickens, an elderly cockroach, a playful goat, and a brave rat.

The Patricia Highsmith renaissance continues with Nothing That Meets the Eye, a brilliant collection of twenty-eight psychologically penetrating stories, a great majority of which are published for the first time in this collection. This volume spans almost fifty years of Highsmith's career and establishes her as a permanent member of our American literary canon, as attested by recent publication of two of these stories in The New Yorker and Harper's. The stories assembled in Nothing That Meets the Eye, written between 1938 and 1982, are vintage Highsmith: a gigolo-like psychopath preys on unfulfilled career women; a lonely spinster's fragile hold on reality is tethered to the bottle; an estranged postal worker invents homicidal fantasies about his coworkers. While some stories anticipate the diabolical narratives of the Ripley novels, others possess a Capra-like sweetness that forces us to see the author in a new light. From this new collection, a remarkable portrait of the American psyche at mid-century emerges, unforgettably distilled by the inimitable eye of Patricia Highsmith. A New York Times Notable Book and a Washington Post Rave of 2002. "Almost every piece...contains touches that reveal what a subtle writer Highsmith was." James Campbell, New York Times "A thrilling compendium of work full of surprises." Ed Siegel, Boston Globe "One of the exhilarating effects of reading Highsmith's stories...is the greatly enlarged sense of her range and energy...in their surehandedness, their amazing breadth and abundance...[these stories] compel attention and they add significantly to her already formidable presence." James Lasdun, Washington Post"

The great revival of interest in Patricia Highsmith continues with the publication of this novel that will give dog owners nightmares for years to come. With an eerie simplicity of style, Highsmith turns our next-door neighbors into sadistic psychopaths, lying in wait among white picket fences and manicured lawns. In A Dog's Ransom, Highsmith blends a savage humor with brilliant social satire in this dark tale of a highminded criminal who hits a wealthy Manhattan couple where it hurts the most when he kidnaps their beloved poodle. This work attesets to Highsmith's reputation as "the poet of apprehension" (Graham Greene).

The great revival of interest in Patricia Highsmith continues with the publication of this legendary, cultish short story collection. With an eerie simplicity of style, Highsmith turns our next-door neighbors into sadistic psychopaths, lying in wait among white picket fences and manicured lawns. In the darkly satiric, often mordantly hilarious sketches that make up Little Tales of Misogyny, Highsmith upsets our conventional notions of female character, revealing the devastating power of these once familiar creatures-"The Dancer," "The Female Novelist," "The Prude"-who destroy both themselves and the men around them. This work attesets to Highsmith's reputation as "the poet of apprehension" (Graham Greene).

The Blunderer, first published in 1953, is hailed as Highsmith's finest novel, about the rise and fall of a faithful suburban husband who plots his wife's demise in fantasies gruesome and eerily serene.

Patricia Highsmith, author of Strangers On a Train, The Talented Mr. Ripley, Found In The Street, and many other books, is known as one of the finest suspense novelists. In this book, she analyzes the key elements of suspense fiction, drawing upon her own experience in four decades as a working writer. She talks about, among other topics; how to develop a complete story from an idea; what makes a plot gripping; the use (and abuse) of coincidence; characterization and the "likeable criminal"; going from first draft to final draft; and writing the suspense short story. Throughout the book, Highsmith illustrates her points with plentiful examples from her own work, and by discussing her own inspirations, false starts, dead ends, successes, and failures, she presents a lively and highly readable picture of the novelist at work. Anyone who wishes to write crime and suspense fiction, or who enjoys reading it, will find this book an insightful guide to the craft and art of a modern master.

Three classic crime novels by a master of the macabre – The Talented Mr. Ripley, Ripley Under Ground, and Ripley's Game – appear here together in hardcover for the first time. Suave, agreeable, and completely amoral, Patricia Highsmith’s hero, the inimitable Tom Ripley, stops at nothing – not even murder – to accomplish his goals. In achieving the opulent life that he was denied as a child, Ripley shows himself to be a master of illusion and manipulation and a disturbingly sympathetic combination of genius and psychopath. Sent on a mission to Italy to coax an irresponsible young playboy back to his wealthy father in America, Ripley finds himself so fond of the young man that he sets out to be like him – exactly like him. The precarious charade that ensues is the first step to a life of elegance and ease – and perpetual danger. As she leads us through the mesmerizing tangle of Ripley’s deadly and sinister games, Highsmith turns the mystery genre inside out and takes us into the mind of a man utterly indifferent to evil.

The screenplay of Anthony Minghella's new film based on the novel by Patricia Highsmith The complete screenplay of Anthony Minghella's adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's The Talented Mr Ripley starring Gwyneth Paltrow, Matt Damon, Jude Law and Cate Blanchett. Tom Ripley, a small-time con man, arrives in Italy from New York in search of a wealthy young man named Dickie Greenleaf. He has been sent by the young man's wealthy father to bring Dickie back to America. But once in Italy, Ripley becomes so attracted to Greenleaf and his exotic lifestyle in the seaport village of Mongibello that Tom yearns to inhabit Dickie's life and falls tragically in love with him. Dickie's wealth, style and good looks are qualities that Tom begins to covet. The frightening consequences of this attraction and the moral choices raised by the crime of murder lie at the heart of Minghella's absorbing film. Set throughout Italy (Ischia, Palermo, Rome, Tuscany and Venice), Minghella's adaptation brings to life Highsmith's amoral tale of a criminal who gets away with murder. "The craft with which [Minghella] has expanded Patricia Highsmith's 1955 classic crime novel has made the film an even richer experience than the gleefully amoral original" (Scotsman)