Description
BY THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE TALENTED MR RIPLEY, CAROL AND STRANGERS ON A TRAIN
'The No.1 Greatest Crime Writer' THE TIMES
'I love Highsmith so much . . . What a revelation her writing is' GILLIAN FLYNN
'No one has created psychological suspense more densely and deliciously satisfying' VOGUE
'Ramon had done it. Obviously! He thought about Ramon, his Catholic soul trapped in his passion for Lelia. He'd find Ramon and see that he paid with his life for what he had done.'
In A Game for the Living, threads of sexual jealousy and guilt are shot through with all Patricia Highsmith's uncanny talent for the unexpected.
Ramon mends furniture. Theodore paints. A devout Catholic, Ramon lives in Mexico City, not far from where he was born into poverty. Theodore, a rich German transplanted to a country where money buys some comfort but no peace, believes in nothing at all.
You'd think the two had nothing in common. Except, of course, that both had slept with Lelia. The two were good friends, so neither minded sharing her affections. They did mind, however, when Lelia was found raped, murdered, and horribly mutilated. The two friends, suspects both, twist in a limbo of tension and doubt, each seeking his own form of solace and truth.
A thrilling, psychologically complex novel, rich with setting, A Game for the Living is Highsmith at her best.
In A Game for the Living threads of sexual jealousy and guilt are shot through with all Patricia Highsmith's uncanny talent for the unexpected.
About the Author
Patricia Highsmith (1921-1995) was born in Fort Worth, Texas, and moved to New York when she was six. In her senior year, she edited the college magazine, having decided at the age of sixteen to become a writer. Her first novel, Strangers on a Train (1950), was made into a classic film by Alfred Hitchcock in 1951. The Talented Mr Ripley (1955), introduced the fascinating anti-hero Tom Ripley, and was made into an Oscar-winning film in 1999 by Anthony Minghella. Highsmith died in Locarno, Switzerland, in February 1995. Her last novel, Small g: A Summer Idyll, was published posthumously, the same year.
Reviews
The No.1 Greatest Crime Writer * The Times *
No one has created psychological suspense more densely and deliciously satisfying * Vogue *
I love Highsmith so much . . . What a revelation her writing is -- Gillian Flynn
Highsmith writes about men like a spider writing about flies * Observer *
For eliciting the menace that lurks in familiar surroundings, there's no one like Patricia Highsmith * Time *
There's no thriller writer's gamesmanship in her novels, none of the reassuring trickery of professional pulp; Highsmith's style is as blunt and straightforward as a strip-search * New Yorker *
For some obscure reason, one of our greatest modernist writers, Patricia Highsmith, has been thought of in her own land as a writer of thrillers. She is both. She is certainly one of the most interesting writers of this dismal century -- Gore Vidal
Classic * USA Today *
I love Highsmith so much . . . What a revelation her writing is -- Gillian Flynn
Book Information
ISBN 9780349004921
Author Patricia Highsmith
Format Paperback
Page Count 288
Imprint Virago Press Ltd
Publisher Little, Brown Book Group
Weight(grams) 225g
Dimensions(mm) 128mm * 199mm * 19mm