A Game for the Living by Patricia Highsmith

Continuing on in my exploration of the work of Patricia Highsmith, I've just finished her 1958 mystery, A Game For The Living. Although wikipedia describes the novel as a psychological mystery, the novel is very different from her work that I've read so far.

I'm sorry to say that this is my least favorite novel by Highsmith. I'm in good company, however. In her non fiction book, Plotting and Writing Suspense Fiction, she says that A Game For The Living is her least favorite as well.

I had tried to do something different from what I had been doing, but this caused me to leave out certain elements that are vital for me: surprise, speed of action, stretching the reader's credulity, and above all the intimacy with the murderer himself. I am not an inventor of puzzles, nor do I like secrets. The result, after rewriting the book four times in a gruelling year of work, was mediocrity. I always say to foreign publishers, and to publishers who contemplate a reprint, "This is my worst book, so please think twice before you buy it."

I was aware of her opinion of the novel before going in. I suppose it is the "mystery" aspect that she and I dislike about the novel. Like reading Dostoevsky, a Highsmith novel is best when she focuses on the psychology of the killer and less on the "who-done-it".