Bøker av Patricia Highsmith

Tom Ripley is struggling to stay one step ahead of his creditors and the law, when an unexpected acquaintance offers him a free trip to Europe and a chance to start over. Ripley wants money, success and the good life and he's willing to kill for it. When his new-found happiness is threatened, his response is as swift as it is shocking.

Named by The Times as the all-time number one crime writer, Patricia Highsmith was an author who broke new ground and defied genre clich s with novels such as The Talented Mr Ripley and Strangers on a Train.In the classic creative writing guide Plotting and Writing Suspense Fiction, Highsmith reveals her secrets for producing world-class crime and thrillers, from imaginative tips for generating ideas to useful ways of turning them into stunning stories.

'Some books change lives. This is one of them' Val McDermid A haunting story of obsessive love which scandalized the world when first published

The psychologists would call it folie a deux... 'Bruno slammed his palms together. We meet on a train, see, and nobody knows we know each other! Catch?'' From this moment, almost against his conscious will, Guy Haines is trapped in a nightmare of shared guilt and an insidious merging of personalities.

'By opening this book, you've given Patricia Highsmith permission to follow you, catch you, take you apart. Get ready to run' Carmen Maria MachadoPatricia Highsmith was one of the great twentieth-century fiction writers, celebrated for classics The Talented Mr Ripley, Carol and Strangers on a Train, but she was also a masterful and prolific short-story writer. This definitive collection, featuring two stories that have never been published before, reveals Highsmith as a genius of the genre. Peerlessly disturbing, exhilarating and brutally funny, Highsmith's stories are as relevant and startling today as when they were first written, presenting a world that is frightening, familiar and brimming with menace.'Every story shimmers like a dark gem as Patricia Highsmith turns her gimlet eye on domesticity, suburban madness, toxic families and the loneliness of childhood. Often mordantly funny and always psychologically acute, this collection is not to be missed' Megan Abbott 'I love Highsmith so much . . . What a revelation her writing is' Gillian Flynn

'If I really don't like somebody, I kill him . . . You remember Malcolm McRae, don't you?'Melinda Van Allen is beautiful, headstrong and sexy. Unfortunately for Vic Van Allen, she is his wife. Their love has soured, and Melinda takes pleasure in flaunting her many affairs to her husband. When one of her lovers is murdered, Vic hints to her latest conquest that he was responsible. As rumours spread about Vic's vicious streak, fiction and reality start to converge. It's only a matter of time before Vic really does have blood on his hands.Books included in the VMC 40th anniversary series include: Frost in May by Antonia White; The Collected Stories of Grace Paley; Fire from Heaven by Mary Renault; The Magic Toyshop by Angela Carter; The Weather in the Streets by Rosamond Lehmann; Deep Water by Patricia Highsmith; The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West; Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston; Heartburn by Nora Ephron; The Dud Avocado by Elaine Dundy; Memento Mori by Muriel Spark; A View of the Harbour by Elizabeth Taylor; and Faces in the Water by Janet Frame

'Edith's fall takes the form of a psychological chiller, but there is also something larger, the poignancy of her struggle not to go under. She is betrayed by such ordinary dreams' New York TimesEdith Howland's diary is her most precious possession, and as she is moving house she is making sure it's safe. A suburban housewife in fifties America, she is moving to Brunswick with her husband Brett and her beloved son, Cliffie, to start a new life for them all. She is optimistic, but most of all she has high hopes for her new venture with Brett, a local newspaper, the Brunswick Corner Bugle.Life seems full of promise, and indeed, to read her diary, filled with her most intimate feelings and revelations, you would never think otherwise. Strange, then, that reality is so dangerously different . . .

The never-seen-before diaries and notebooks of Patricia Highsmith, author of THE TALENTED MR RIPLEY and CAROL

Published to celebrate the centenary of one of the twentieth century's most influential writers, this is the most comprehensive volume of Highsmith's short fiction. Includes two newly discovered stories.

Tom Ripley detested murder. Unless it was absolutely necessary. Wherever possible, he preferred someone else to do the dirty work. In this case someone with no criminal record, who would commit 'two simple murders' for a very generous fee.

The Buckmaster Gallery is staging another Derwatt exhibition, but now an American collector claims that the expensive masterpiece he bought three years ago is a fake. It is, of course, and he wants to talk to Derwatt, but Derwatt, inconveniently, is dead.

'These little tales are tremendous fun, glorious hand grenades lobbed at the reader by a gleeful, cackling Patricia Highsmith' Dan Rhodes Little Tales of Misogyny is Highsmith's legendary, cultish short-story collection. With an eerie simplicity of style, Highsmith turns our next-door neighbours into sadistic psychopaths, lying in wait among white picket fences and manicured lawns. In these darkly satirical, often hilarious, sketches you'll meet seemingly familiar women with the power to destroy both themselves and the men around them. 'The No.1 Greatest Crime Writer' The Times

A stunning hardback edition of one of the most influential, groundbreaking crime novels ever written.'I'm a huge Highsmith fan. If there's one book I wish I'd written, it's The Talented Mr Ripley' Sarah WatersTom Ripley travels to Italy with a commission to coax a prodigal young American back to his wealthy father. But Ripley finds himself very fond of Dickie Greenleaf. He wants to be like him - exactly like him. Suave, agreeable and utterly amoral, Ripley will stop at nothing to accomplish his goal. The Talented Mr. Ripley serves as an unforgettable introduction to this smooth confident man, whose talent for murder and self-invention is chronicled in four subsequent Ripley novels.

'The setting is Venice, the characterisation brilliant, the syle spare and superb' Daily MailThe honeymoon is over; the bride dead by her own hand. Ray Garrett, the grieving husband, convinces the police in Rome of his innocence, but not his father-in-law, Ed Coleman, who shoots him at point-blank range and leaves him for dead. Ray survives and follows Coleman to Venice, where the two fall into an eerie game of cat-and-mouse - Coleman obsessed with vengeance and Ray determined to save his reputation, and himself. Each is at once the hunter and the hunted in a tense duel that, as each manages to walk away, draws them nearer to death.

Tom Ripley is quietly living a life of luxury at his chateau at Villeperce, and, as ever, is keeping one step ahead of the law - he has, after all, a past that would not bear too much close scrutiny.

NOW A MAJOR NEW NETFLIX SERIESTom Ripley wants money, success, and the good life - and he's willing to kill for it. Struggling to stay one step ahead of his creditors (and the law), Ripley leaps at the chance to start afresh on a free trip to Europe. But when his new-found happiness is threatened, his response is as swift as it is shocking. Now a major new Netflix series, The Talented Mr Ripley is the first in Highsmith's classic series featuring the character of Tom Ripley - fiction's most terrifying con-man. 'The No.1 Greatest Crime Writer' The Times'Ripley, amoral, hedonistic and charming, is a genuinely original creation' Daily Telegraph

My secrets-the secrets that everyone has-are here, in black and white.'Patricia Highsmith's diaries and notebooks offer an unparalleled, unforgettable insight into the life and mind of one of the 20th century's most talented, complex and fascinating writers.Posthumously discovered in Highsmith's linen cupboard and edited down from 56 thick spiral notebooks by her devoted editor, Anna Von Planta, this one-volume assemblage of her diaries and notebooks traces Highsmith's mesmerising double life.The diaries show Highsmith's unwavering literary ambitions - coming often at huge personal sacrifice. We see her writing the books that would make her name, including the Ripley novels which mark the apotheosis of the psychological thriller, and The Price of Salt (later adapted into the 2015 film Carol), one of the first mainstream novels to depict two women in love. In these pages, we see Highsmith reflecting on good and evil, loneliness and intimacy, sexuality and sacrifice, love and murder. We see her tumultuous romantic relationships play out alongside her acquaintances with other writers.Written in her inimitable and dazzling prose and offering all the pleasures of Highsmith's novels, these are one of the most compulsively readable literary diaries to be published in generations - and yield, at last an unparalleled, unfiltered, unforgettable picture of this enigmatic, iconic, trailblazing author's true self.

Before Alfred Hitchcock adapted her debut novel, Strangers on a Train, for the big screen; before her suave and sociopathic Thomas Ripley snaked his way into the canon of psychological suspense; and before The Price of Salt became a cult classic of romantic obsession, who was Patricia Highsmith?Focused on her formative years in Manhattan, this condensed edition of Highsmith's monumental Diaries and Notebooks reveals "Pat" at her most passionate and florescent. Beginning in 1941 at Barnard College and encompassing the Texas native's adventurous twenties,?The New York Years intertwines scenes from her dizzying social life-rife with sleepless nights barhopping in the queer underground Greenwich Village scene, always juggling too many lovers-with an intimate self-portrait of a young artist who by day dispassionately wrote comics for a paycheck. Amid all the hangovers and the breakups, she read voraciously and honed her craft with verve. Laid bare in this perennial reader's edition are the bold, hilarious, romantic, tragic, and maddeningly contradictory observations of one of "our greatest modernist writers" (Gore Vidal).

Penguin Readers is an ELT graded reader series. Please note that the eBook edition does NOT include access to the audio edition and digital book. Written for learners of English as a foreign language, each title includes carefully adapted text, new illustrations and language learning exercises.Titles include popular classics, exciting contemporary fiction, and thought-provoking non-fiction, introducing language learners to bestselling authors and compelling content.The eight levels of Penguin Readers follow the Common European Framework of Reference for language learning (CEFR). Exercises at the back of each Reader help language learners to practise grammar, vocabulary, and key exam skills. Before, during and after-reading questions test readers' story comprehension and develop vocabulary.The Talented Mr Ripley, a Level 6 Reader, is B1+ in the CEFR framework. The longer text is made up of sentences with up to four clauses, introducing future continuous, reported questions, third conditional, was going to and ellipsis. A small number of illustrations support the text.In the 1950s, Tom Ripley travels from the United States of America to Italy, to find Dickie Greenleaf and bring him home to his father. But when Tom sees Dickie's money and relaxed way of life, he becomes jealous and begins to make other plans.Visit the Penguin Readers websiteRegister to access online resources including tests, worksheets and answer keys. Exclusively with the print edition, readers can unlock a digital book and audio edition (not available with the eBook).

The great revival of interest in Patricia Highsmith continues with the publication of this novel that will give dog owners nightmares for years to come. With an eerie simplicity of style, Highsmith turns our next-door neighbors into sadistic psychopaths, lying in wait among white picket fences and manicured lawns. In A Dog's Ransom, Highsmith blends a savage humor with brilliant social satire in this dark tale of a highminded criminal who hits a wealthy Manhattan couple where it hurts the most when he kidnaps their beloved poodle. This work attesets to Highsmith's reputation as "the poet of apprehension" (Graham Greene).

With the acclaim for The Talented Mr. Ripley, more film projects in production, and two biographies forthcoming, expatriate legend Patricia Highsmith would be shocked to see that she has finally arrived in her homeland. Throughout her career, Highsmith brought a keen literary eye and a genius for plumbing the psychopathic mind to more than thirty works of fiction, unparalleled in their placid deviousness and sardonic humor. With deadpan accuracy, she delighted in creating true sociopaths in the guise of the everyday man or woman. Now, one of her finest works is again in print: A Suspension of Mercy, a masterpiece of noir fantasy. With this novel, Highsmith revels in eliciting the unsettling psychological forces that lurk beneath the surface of everyday contemporary life. "For eliciting the menace that lurks in familiar surroundings, there's no one like Patricia Highsmith."-Time "Highsmith's novels are peerlessly disturbing ....bad dreams that keep us thrashing for the rest of the night."-The New Yorker

Now part of American film and literary lore, Tom Ripley, "a bisexual psychopath and art forger who murders without remorse when his comforts are threatened" (New York Times Book Review), was Patricia Highsmith's favorite creation. In these volumes, we find Ripley ensconced on a French estate with a wealthy wife, a world-class art collection, and a past to hide. In Ripley Under Ground (1970), an art forgery goes awry and Ripley is threatened with exposure; in The Boy Who Followed Ripley (1980), Highsmith explores Ripley's bizarrely paternal relationship with a troubled young runaway, whose abduction draws them into Berlin's seamy underworld; and in Ripley Under Water (1991), Ripley is confronted by a snooping American couple obsessed with the disappearance of an art collector who visited Ripley years before. More than any other American literary character, Ripley provides "a lens to peer into the sinister machinations of human behavior" (John Freeman, Pittsburgh Gazette).

'Offers the most complete picture ever published of how Highsmith saw herself' New York Times'One of the finest writers in the English language' Richard Osman'I love Highsmith so much. What a revelation her writing was' Gillian Flynn 'My secrets - the secrets that everyone has - are here, in black and white.'Published for the very first time for the centenary of her birth, Patricia Highsmith's diaries and notebooks offer an unforgettable insight into the life and mind of one of the twentieth century's most fascinating writers.Though the famously secretive Highsmith refused to authorise a biography during her lifetime, she left behind 8,000 pages of notebooks and diaries, along with tantalising instructions on how they should be read. This one-volume assemblage reveals, at last, the inscrutable figure behind the pen. The diaries show Highsmith's unwavering literary ambitions - coming often at huge personal sacrifice. We see Highsmith drafting Strangers on a Train while attending the Yaddo artists' colony in 1948, alongside Flannery O'Connor and at Truman Capote's recommendation. We feel her euphoria writing The Price of Salt (later adapted into the film Carol), one of the first mainstream novels to depict two women in love. And we watch Highsmith in Positano, subsisting on little more than cigarettes and gleefully conjuring Mr Ripley, the sociopathic anti-hero that would cement her reputation.In these pages Highsmith reflects on good and evil, loneliness and intimacy, sexuality and sacrifice, love and murder. She describes her tumultuous romantic relationships, alongside her sometimes dizzying social life involving Jane Bowles, Peggy Guggenheim, Carson McCullers, Arthur Koestler and W. H. Auden. And in her skewering of McCarthy-era America, her prickly disparagement of contemporary art and ever-percolating prejudices, we see Highsmith revealing the roots of her psychological angst and acuity.At once lovable, detestable and mesmerising, Highsmith put her turbulent life to paper for five decades. Offering all the pleasures of Highsmith's novels, the result is one of the most compulsively readable literary diaries to publish in generations

Five gripping full-cast adaptations of Patricia Highsmith's bestselling 'Ripley' series - plus bonus materialCharming, cultured and clever, Tom Ripley has a taste for the finer things in life. And he is determined to get them, by any means necessary... These five plays - The Talented Mr Ripley, Ripley Under Ground, Ripley's Game, The Boy Who Followed Ripley and Ripley Under Water - chart Tom's journey from impoverished conman to wealthy bon viveur and serial killer. His homicidal adventures begin when he befriends shipping heir Dickie Greenleaf: he wants money, success, and he's willing to kill for it. But when he attains the luxurious lifestyle he craves, he is always on the edge of being discovered. Will his shadowy past finally catch up with him?BAFTA-winning actor Ian Hart stars as Ripley in these tense, thrilling dramas. Also included are two bonus documentaries: Looking for Ripley, in which crime writer Mark Billingham unravels the mystery behind our lasting fascination with Tom Ripley, and A Passionate Affair, presented by Marcel Berlins, who asks whether Patricia Highsmith fell in love with her suave, amoral anti-hero. Text © 1993 by Diogenes Verlag AG Zurich, all rights reserved. © 2022 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd (p) 2022 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

A suspenseful full-cast BBC radio adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's classic psychological thrillerWhen Guy Haines meets Charles Bruno in the dining car of a Texas-bound train, they share their secrets in the way that only strangers can. Charles confides his hatred for his controlling father, Guy confesses that he is divorcing his unfaithful wife. As the drink flows and the conversation turns darker, Charles proposes the perfect solution to both their problems - a murder swap - and Guy laughingly agrees. Back home, he quickly forgets their drunken pact: but Charles does not. Soon Guy is facing a nightmarish choice - fulfil his part of the bargain, or be framed for a murder he didn't commit... Dramatised for radio by award-winning playwright Craig Warner, this disturbing tale of obsession, blackmail, guilt and fear stars Michael Sheen (Good Omens, Staged) as Guy Haines and Anton Lesser (Game of Thrones, Endeavour) as Charles Bruno. CreditsWritten by Craig Warner, based on the novel by Patricia HighsmithOriginal music by Craig WarnerDirected by Andy JordanCastCharles Bruno........................Anton LesserGuy Haines........................Michael SheenAnne........................Saskia ReevesGerard........................Bill NighyElsie Bruno........................Jane WhittenshawAlex........................Denys HawthorneMyers........................Roger MayTreacher........................Stephen CritchlowCop........................John HartleyFrear........................Andrew BranchFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4, 25 January 1996Strangers on a Train © 1993 by Diogenes Verlag AG Zurich, all rights reserved. © 2022 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd(p) 2022 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

For the first time Patricia Highsmith's acclaimed short stories have been collected in one volume

Robert Forester didn't look like the kind of man to be a prowler. His ex-wife had told the police he was erratic, liable to violence, had even fired a gun at her. Maybe he was psychopathic murderer...

"A document of persecuted love-perfect." -The Independent