Guillermo le confiesa a su amigo Eusebio que mantiene relaciones sexuales sadomasoquistas con una misteriosa mujer. Al cabo del tiempo, y por azar, Eusebio decide buscar a esa mujer para contarle que Guillermo ha muerto y que, por lo tanto, nunca volverá a llamarla. Y cuando la encuentra se queda hechizado por ella. No se atreve a decirle nada para no tener que desvelar los secretos que conoce, para no ahuyentarla. Poco a poco, se van enamorando. Eusebio espera que ella le pegue, le humille y le maltrate sexualmente como hacía con Guillermo, pero Julia sólo le da caricias y ternura. Ése es el principio de la terrible duda que se abre paso en los pensamientos de Eusebio: ¿una y otra son la misma mujer? ¿La que azota con un látigo a Guillermo y la que se abraza a él sosegadamente son la misma persona?

Another fantastic Highsmith yarn. Not quite as negative as others I have read, I was reminded of Agatha Christie at times. Youngish American man and brit woman married and living in the English country side. She's an artist and he is a writer. In fact he is working on a tv drama to be called The Whip- about a smart criminal who gets away with a variety of crimes. He must imagine lots of creative crimes. He comes to imagine how he would kill his wife. The couple fights and she disappears for 2 months and therefore his imaginings (of killing wife) come back to haunt him/ make all suspicious of him. I love the way she tells the story of the writer and one must imagine that she (Highsmith, the author) is part of that imagination. A subtle, entrancing story. ( )

This is the 5th novel I've read by Highsmith. I usually think of her as the 4th of the 4 mystery/crime-fiction writers that I've read that i think are truly great. The hierarchy having been generally: Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, James Ellroy, & Patricia Highsmith. Now, having read this, Highmsith's position in the hierarchy is less clearly in last place. This was amazing. All of the bks I've read by her so far have involved psychologically perceptive ensarings in subtly twisted minds. All have been painful. This one was probably the most subtle yet. 2 fairly ordinary people, a married couple, have some minor quirks. Their bad decisions follow one after the other in believable ways that're related to their quirks. Things cd go one way or the other - almost all the way to the end. But the bad decisions eventually lead to a tragedy that's even more tragic b/c of its sheer stupid unnecessariness. Highsmith is fantastic at sucking the reader into a world of little things that accumulate into big things. Reading her bks is like watching a horror movie where a character is obviously about to do something stupidly fatal - the viewer sits there thinking: "Don't do that you idiot! The killer'll get you then!" But Highsmith's far more subtle & perceptive than any horror filmmaker whose work I've ever experienced. She's so damned good that I'll probably read more by her EVEN THOUGH THE STORIES ARE SO DEPRESSING. ( )

Now Alicia is gone, it's feeling a lot like Gone Girl. I wonder if this book influenced that one. ( )

Der Schriftsteller Sydney und seine Frau Alicia führen eine schwierige Ehe. Manchmal stellt sich Sydney vor, wie es wäre, Alicia umzubringen. Dieser Gedanke regt seine Phantasie an, und Sydney beginnt eine Geschichte zu schreiben, in der er den Mord an Alicia minutiös schildert. Als Alicia aber tatsächlich verschwindet, ist Sydney plötzlich in Teufels Küche...