The Crime Writer
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By Jill Dawson
avg rating
1 review
‘Brilliant’
Paula Hawkins
In 1964, the eccentric American novelist Patricia Highsmith is hiding out in a cottage in Suffolk, to concentrate on her writing and escape her fans. She has another motive too – a secret romance with a married lover based in London.
Unfortunately it soon becomes clear that all her demons have come with her. Prowlers, sexual obsessives, frauds, imposters, suicides and murderers: the tropes of her fictions clamour for her attention, rudely intruding on her peaceful Suffolk retreat. After the arrival of Ginny, an enigmatic young journalist bent on interviewing her, events take a catastrophic turn. Except, as always in Highsmith’s troubled life, matters are not quite as they first appear . . .
Masterfully recreating Highsmith’s much exercised fantasies of murder and madness, Jill Dawson probes the darkest reaches of the imagination in this novel – at once a brilliant portrait of a writer and an atmospheric, emotionally charged, riveting tale.
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We were delighted to receive copies of this book via RGFE and I had also been recommended it via a friend. We weren't blown away by it: we didn't like the main character and found it a bit confusing and long-winded to begin with. The feelings of unease and discomfort were well expressed but in the end, we simply felt that we didn't care! I would say however that none of us have read Patricia Highsmith and I have a feeling that had we been familiar with her and her novels, we may have enjoyed this a bit more.
