The honeymoon is over, as they say, the bride dead by her own hand. Ray Garrett, the grieving husband, convinces the police in Rome of his innocence, but not his thuggish father-in-law, an American painter named Ed Coleman, who shoots him at point-blank range and leaves him for dead. Ray survives, however, and follows Coleman to Venice, where the two fall into an eerie game of cat-and-mouseColeman obsessed with vengeance and Ray equally insistent on clearing his conscience, though each is at once the hunter and the hunted in a duel composed of tension, hiding, and guessing, and at times punctuated by violence that, even as each manages to walk away, draws them nearer to death."
Patricia Highsmith wrote a handful of truly excellent short stories and her Ripley novels are good examples of suspense fiction. With that in mind, I couldn't bring myself to give this book more than two stars simply because it's way below her standard. The characters were unlikable rich Americans (which is typical for Highsmith) but their behaviour didn't ring true and their motivations weren't convincing, so there were no redeeming points at all. There were a couple of decent action scenes and a lot of coffee and alcohol, but it was all rather repetitive, directionless, and just fizzled out at the end. You should definitely read some Highsmith, but not this one.
Reading updates
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Started reading
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19 April, 2020:
Finished reading
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19 April, 2020:
Reviewed