It's a Crime
THE BLUNDERER. By Patricia Highsmith. (Cresset Press, 15s.) Relentlessly single-minded novel of suspense, as tactically ingenious as Miss Highsmith's earlier Strangers on a Train. Again, a crime provides the only link betwen two men : Kimmel, a small- town bookseller, brutally murders his wife and contrives to evade suspicion until Stackhouse, a young lawyer, guesses the truth and contemplates ridding himself of his own neurotically temperamen- tal wife by the same ingenious method. When Mrs. Stackhouse in fact dies, a persistent detective recognises the similarities between the two cases and mercilessly sets out to break both men. Miss Highsmith, a cool and analytical writer, details this nerve- racking process in a series of short, razor-edged scenes. Savage, precise, and more than a little inhuman.
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