Architect Guy Haines has the ability to achieve
anything he wants in life – a successful career, a fantastic home, and a
beautiful new wife……. but all this changes on the day he catches a train to
Metcalf to talk to his estranged wife about a divorce.
On the train Haines is subjected to a very uncomfortable
conversation with the wealthy but bored Charles Bruno, though when Haines
reaches his destination he has pretty much dismissed Bruno as a harmless
crackpot. But Bruno sees this fortuitous
meeting as the start of a very beautiful friendship ~ one that will come at
great cost.
Bruno believes that he has the idea for a perfect crime,
one that attaches no motive to the perpetrators, and which will secure each of
their futures. But Bruno’s careful
planning doesn’t account for Haines having a conscience and the fact that there
will be others who are determined to get to the truth.
Highsmith had me on tender hooks throughout this
novel. Her characterisations were
excellent, I detested the smarmy alcoholic Charles Bruno and felt all of the
emotions attributed to Haines. The
nightmare world that she portrays is unshakeable as is the persistent
Bruno. Living out his fantasies Bruno
drags Guy, a once honest man, down into hell without the strength of character
to make it back in one piece.
I did this one as a ‘buddy read’ with a couple of readers
who I have connected with on Twitter.
All three of us felt the high anxiety of the storyline, and once we had
finished we agreed that we needed something calming to read afterwards!
Hitchcock made a movie by the same name, but he detracted
from the novel considerably and it is extremely dated by today’s standards.
Read by Maxine
