Plotting and Writing Suspense Fiction

About Patricia Highsmith

Patricia Highsmith (1921-1995) was born in Fort Worth Texas and moved to New York when she was six. In her senior year she edited the college magazine having decided at the age of sixteen to become a writer. Her first novel Strangers on a Train (1950) was made into a classic film by Alfred Hitchcock in 1951. The Talented Mr Ripley (1955) introduced the fascinating anti-hero Tom Ripley and was made into an Oscar-winning film in 1999 by Anthony Minghella. Highsmith died in Locarno Switzerland in February 1995. Her last novel Small g: A Summer Idyll was published posthumously the same year.