Those Who Walk Away

For me, the name 'Patricia Highsmith' designates a sacred territory: she is the One whose place among writers is that which Spinoza held for Gilles Deleuze (a 'Christ among philosophers') . . . [A] masterpiece. --Slavoj Zizek, London Review of Books

Absorbing . . . illuminating--and always compelling. --Anthony Boucher, New York Times Book Review

[Ray and Coleman] are among the most memorable products of Highsmith's powerful imagination . . . The deadly games of pursuit . . . are as subtle and interesting as anything being done in the novel today. --Julian Symons, Times Literary Supplement

The novel has many virtues, including a stunning sense of place and a fascinating cast of characters. --Pauline Mayer, Cleveland Plain Dealer

Praise for Patricia Highsmith:

One of the 20th-century's most powerful writers . . . [Highsmith] transcended the workaday limitations of the crime genre with an array of erotic predators and stylish plot-reversals. She wrote unpretentiously . . . and with profound psychological insight. --Alexander Theroux, Wall Street Journal

[Highsmith's] characters are irrational, and they leap to life in their very lack of reason . . . Highsmith is the poet of apprehension rather than fear. --Graham Greene

For some obscure reason, one of our greatest modernist writers, Patricia Highsmith, has been thought of in her own land as a writer of thrillers. She is both. She is certainly one of the most interesting writers of this dismal century. --Gore Vidal

Miss Highsmith's genius is in presenting fantasy's paradox: successes are not what they seem . . . Where in the traditional fairy tale the heroine turns the toad into a prince, in Miss Highsmith's fables the prince becomes a toad--success is nearly always fatal . . . Combining the best features of the suspense genre with the best of existential fiction--a reflection--the stories are fabulous, in all the senses of that word. --Paul Theroux

She writes so fearlessly . . . about human relationships and the human heart. I always have this terrible sense of foreboding . . . you never feel safe. --Cate Blanchett

Patricia Highsmith's novels are peerlessly disturbing--bad dreams that keep us restless and thrashing for the rest of the night. --Terrence Rafferty, New Yorker

These days, just about all the exciting work in the murder-for-entertainment business descends not from Arthur Conan Doyle or Hammett but from Highsmith. --Atlantic