The Crime Writer
On sale
2nd June 2016
Price: £9.99
‘Brilliant’ Paula Hawkins, author of The Girl on the Train
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.
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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Reviews
This novel is one wonderful long riff on Patricia Highsmith . . . Unsettling, sexy and gripping.
This novel is the real deal. Beautifully written and a must for all Highsmith fans.
Ventriloquy is Dawson's forte . . . this fascinating, skilfully constructed novel builds a convincing picture of Patricia Highsmith
A beautifully crafted and utterly riveting blend of fact and fiction about a fascinating 20th-century figure.
You do not need to be a passionate Highsmith fan to admire this beautifully written and elegant novel, but I think it will particularly appeal to those who have read her books and know something about her life; they should recognise many of the allusions and ideas
A dark tale of madness and murder, of obsession and delusion, that's worthy of Highsmith herself
[An] impeccable portrait . . . a hugely compelling read, jam-packed full of tensions and psychological insight, all beautifully observed.
An ingenious concept . . . Dawson can be applauded for her passionate immersion in her subject, and for creating a novel as dark and odd as the subject herself.
An intoxicating, shadowy narrative . . . [Dawson's] imagined version of events will delight Highsmith's fans
Dawson has drawn a witty, creepy plot as well as a convincing character sketch of a woman all too easy to caricature
Dawson skilfully constructs a dark tale that Highsmith fans will love
THE CRIME WRITER represents an astonishing act of literary ventriloquism, easily on a par with THE MASTER, Colm Tóibín's fine novel about Henry James.
An assured and visceral page-turner, as convincing as it is bold
Fantastically moody and appealingly unhinged - a piece of sophisticated literary ventriloquism that achieves a wonderful blurring of the lines between fact and fantasy.
It's brilliant