Virago Modern Classics: The Blunderer

First published in 1953, The Blunderer is often hailed as Highsmith’s finest novel, about the rise and fall of a faithful suburban husband who plots his wife’s demise in fantasies gruesome and eerily serene.

THE BLUNDERER was written by Highsmith in between Strangers on a Train and The Talented Mr Ripley. The novel follows the young, successful and handsome, Walter Stackhouse who seems to have it all, that is, until the day his wife’s body is found at the bottom of a cliff. Under the intense scrutiny of the investigation he commits one mistake, then another, until – in true Highsmithian fashion – Walter finds his perfect life derailed. Now Walter is running from the obsessions of the murderer, and the suspicions of the lead cop, not to mention his own increasingly life-threatening blunders.