Richard Gardner

Two strangers meet on a train, one bearing a grudge against his father, the other against his wife. One suggests the perfect murder: they each kill the other’s nemesis and the police would never even know that they’d met.

Strangers on a Train is the intense debut novel from psychological crime genius Patricia Highsmith (The Talented Mr. Ripley). It focuses on a game of cat and mouse between the respectable architect, Guy Haines, and his stalker, the psychopath, Charles Bruno, whom he meets on the train of the title.

The story is a dark and brooding Hitchcockian nightmare (Hitchcock, somewhat unsurprisingly, went on to direct the film version), which unravels in painstaking (and often disturbing) detail. You can picture the scenes vividly — the creepy meeting on the train, alcoholism, paranoia in suburbia, and a trip to the a small town fifties fairground that will linger long though you’ll wish it didn’t.

Considering this was written sixty years ago, the book is still relevant and shocking. It’s a sophisticated noirish dissection of madness, of an alcoholic psychopath stalking (and taking over) an innocent man’s life, of how easily one’s life can fall apart because of someone crazy. Highsmith (in a similar — though more subtle — manner to Bret Easten Ellis), manages to access your darkest paranoias and leave you feeling both hooked and chilled to the bone. Top stuff!