FROM: My favorite writers

Patricia Highsmith (1921–1995) was an American novelist and short-story writer best known for psychological thrillers about obsession, deception, and murder. Her fiction draws readers into the minds of morally compromised characters, making their increasingly terrible decisions feel unnervingly plausible. Born in Fort Worth, Texas, she achieved early success with Strangers on a Train and later created the charming, murderous Tom Ripley, who appears in five novels.

Three of her most famous books are:

• Strangers on a Train (1950): Her debut thriller, in which a chance encounter leads to a proposal that two strangers exchange murders.
• The Talented Mr. Ripley (1955): A psychological thriller about an ambitious young man whose desire for another man’s privileged life leads to deception and murder.
• The Price of Salt (1952): Later republished as Carol, this novel about two women falling in love broke ground with its hopeful treatment of a lesbian relationship.