The Crime Writer

When acclaimed suspense writer Patricia Highsmith, the antiheroine of this dreamlike, high-tension novel from Dawson (Lucky Bunny), moves into a Suffolk cottage in 1965, she welcomes the quiet seclusion. She looks forward to working on her new book, collecting snails, and maybe enjoying a weekend with her married lover, Sam Gosforth, who’s “everything I’m not.” Unfortunately, a nosy journalist, who Pat swears she’s met before, pressures her for an interview, and when Sam finally visits, her volatile husband, Gerald, follows in her wake. Pat has always been fascinated by what moves a person to murder, and she applies fierce resolve to the aftermath of a shocking act of violence that would not have been out of place in her novel The Talented Mr. Ripley. Dawson smoothly marries fact with fiction to capture the famously prickly Highsmith while astutely exploring love, obsession, and the myriad shades of darkness within us all. [em]Agent: Caroline Dawnay, United Agents (U.K.). (June) [/em]