A Dog’s Ransom - Patricia Highsmith

A Dog's Ransom is a fine little thriller that is deceptive in more ways than one. Starting out initially indeed as a ransom case perpetrated on a well-off middle-aged couple by a discontented and unbalanced Polish immigrant who has been writing them anonymous hate letters, the novel soon develops into something else entirely when a young enthusiastic and impressionable police officer volunteers to look into the case. 

More than just the unexpected turns that the case follows, the novel is a superb and realistic character study of everyday characters from several levels of Manhattan society and how they interact, throwing up interesting conflicts between them and revealing underlying bitterness in their attitudes towards migrants, crime and the police. Rather than there being the hard edge of hatred and bitterness that might have been expected from the outset, Highsmith takes an unexpected angle and rather reveals a core of kindness and trust in people that is gradually eroded and twisted as events take unexpected turns.

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