The Crime Writer

It’s 1964 and Patricia Highsmith, real-life author of Strangers On a Train, is hiding out in an English cottage to escape press attention and conduct an affair with her married lover Samantha. When Samantha’s violent husband, Gerald, pays a visit, a crime is committed and disoriented Patsy merges figures from her past with those in her delusional present, including Ginny the journalist who has managed to track her down. Jill Dawson is no stranger to revisiting famous figures with a fictional spin – it is 16 years since she wrote the superb Fred and Edie, based on murderess Edith Thompson and her lover, Freddy Bywaters. The Crime Writer is a dark tale of fantasy blending with reality.