The Blunderer

"Highsmith's novels are peerlessly disturbing...bad dreams that keep us thrashing for the rest of the night."— The New Yorker For two years, Walter Stackhouse has been a faithful and supportive husband to his wife, Clara. She is distant and neurotic, and Walter finds himself harboring gruesome fantasies about her demise. When Clara's dead body turns up at the bottom of a cliff in a manner uncannily resembling the recent death of a woman named Helen Kimmel who was murdered by her husband, Walter finds himself under intense scrutiny. He commits several blunders that claim his career and his reputation, cost him his friends, and eventually threaten his life. The Blunderer examines the dark obsessions that lie beneath the surface of seemingly ordinary people. With unerring psychological insight, Patricia Highsmith portrays characters who cross the precarious line separating fantasy from reality. For two years, Walter Stackhouse has been a faithful and supportive husband to his wife, Clara. She is distant and neurotic, and Walter finds himself harboring gruesome fantasies about her demise. When Clara's dead body turns up at the bottom of a cliff in a manner uncannily resembling the recent death of a woman named Helen Kimmel who was murdered by her husband, Walter finds himself under scrutiny. He commits several blunders that claim his career and his reputation, cost him his friends, and eventually threaten his life. The Blunderer examines the dark obsessions that lie beneath the surface of seemingly ordinary people. With unerring psychological insight, Patricia Highsmith portrays characters who cross the precarious line separating fantasy from reality. NB: The title in England was changed to Lament for a Lover . Two women die under similar circumstances--Melchior Kimmel killed his wife, Walter Stackhouse did not kill his. Lieutenant Corby, investigating the Stackhouse case, links it with the unsolved Kimmel murder. Then begins a nightmare for the two suspected men. Corby's wish to get at the truth becomes perverted by his ambition into an almost insane desire to extract confessions. Soon all three are caught in a trap from which there is no escape.

"Highsmith's novels are peerlessly disturbing...bad dreams that keep us thrashing for the rest of the night."—The New Yorker

New Yorker

Highsmith's novels are peerlessly disturbing...bad dreams that keep us thrashing for the rest of the night.