Patricia Highsmith Detectives You Can’t Get Away From

Patricia Highsmith is an American writer of action-packed detectives and thrillers, she owns several important plot discoveries that other authors later borrowed from her. Another phenomenon associated with Highsmith is that her books are amazingly cinematic, almost all have been filmed, some more than once.

“Random Travel Companions” plot
Patricia Highsmith’s early and one of the best detective stories turned into Alfred Hitchcock’s wonderful noir film Strangers on a Train in 1951.

A young architect named Guy meets Bruno on a train. Guy wants to share family life problems with someone, and who better than a stranger on a train? He will go out and immediately forget his story, and if he condemns him for nasty words, then what difference does it make, because Guy will never see him again.

But in the case of Bruno, this law of random fellow travelers was violated: a man who seemed more and more strange and frightening the more they talked, offered to solve Guy’s problem radically. A black joke, such, apparently, is the character of a person, it will not go beyond conversations.
When Bruno got off the train Guy felt better and tried to forget his strange companion and their conversation. At night, Guy had a very colorful nightmare, and when he reached his destination, he discovered that the crime that Bruno had jokingly suggested had been committed, and he, Guy, became the main suspect.

Read Random Passengers online on our website – in this vintage detective, Patricia Highsmith first used a technique that other authors and directors often borrowed later (for example, in the first season of Fargo).

“Owl Cry”
A psychological thriller that explores the behavioral scenario of the “self-proclaimed victim” is another groundbreaking detective novel by Patricia Highsmith.
Parisian artist Robert comes to the Vichy province to relax and recover from a difficult divorce. He almost immediately meets Juliette and falls head over heels in love with her.

An artist from the capital easily turned the head of a provincial girl, and this ruined her engagement and the life of her fiancé Patrick. Juliette announced to him that she was unhappy and was leaving for Robert. He, in turn, quickly lost interest in Juliette. The tense situation ends with two deaths.
In 1987, based on this novel by Highsmith, the French director Claude Chabrol made a very stylish film adaptation of the same name.

“Murder Writer”
Not only detectives are tempted to try themselves as a criminal, such a thought haunted the author of detective novels Sydney Bartleby for quite some time.
There are so many brilliant stories in his head, though his books are not very popular, but he considers himself to be certainly very talented. For sure, if he had killed someone in real life, he would never have been caught.

Bartleby’s unbridled imagination begins to work on a thought experiment: if he decided to kill his wife, how would he do it? His wife had irritated him lately with endless reproaches, and disappeared one day.
The police suspect Bartleby, because there are witnesses of his quarrels with his wife. Indirect evidence that perhaps there was a murder, the investigation now and then finds in the writer’s house. He himself behaves strangely, which further strengthens the belief that he killed his wife. However, the ending of the novel will be unexpected.