Patricia Highsmith Patricia Highsmith Patricia Highsmith (January 19, 1921 – February 4, 1995) was an American novelist and short story writer best known for her psychological thrillers, including her series of five novels featuring the character Tom Ripley. She wrote 22 novels and numerous short stories throughout her career spanning nearly five decades, and her work has led to more than two dozen film adaptations. Her writing derived influence from existentialist literature, and questioned notions of identity and popular morality. She was dubbed "the poet of apprehension" by novelist Graham Greene. Her first novel, "Strangers on a Train", has been adapted for
Patricia Highsmith which no violent crime takes place, and where her characters have "more explicit sexual existences" and allowed "to find happiness in their relationship." Her short stories appeared for the first time in "Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine" in the early 1950s. Her last novel, "", was rejected by Knopf (her usual publisher by then) several months before her death, leaving Highsmith without an American publisher. It was published posthumously in the United Kingdom by Bloomsbury Publishing in March 1995, and nine years later in the United States by W.W. Norton. In 1955, Highsmith wrote "The Talented Mr. Ripley", a novel about