CLASSIC THRILLER BEHIND THE HITCHCOCK FILM AND HIGHSMITH'S FIRST NOVEL

By the bestselling author of The Talented Mr Ripley and Carol

'Her books have stylistic texture, psychological depth, mesmeric readability' SUNDAY TIMES

'The original, the best, the gloriously twisted Queen of Suspense' MARK BILLINGHAM

'A gem . . . A magnificent suspense' DAILY MAIL

The psychologists would call it folie a deux . . .

'Bruno slammed his palms together. "Hey! Cheeses, what an idea! I kill your wife and you kill my father! We meet on a train, see, and nobody knows we know each other! Perfect alibis! Catch?'''

Guy Haines and Charles Anthony Bruno are passengers on the same train. Haines is a successful architect in the midst of a divorce, Bruno a mysterious smooth-talker with a sadistic proposal: he'll murder Haines's wife if Haines will murder Bruno's father. As Bruno carries out his twisted plan, Guy finds himself trapped in Highsmith's perilous world, where, under the right circumstances, ordinary people are capable of extraordinary crimes. From this moment, almost against his conscious will, he is trapped in a nightmare of shared guilt and an insidious merging of personalities.

Introduction by: Claire Messud