Rating: 
Summary: Can hardly find the words
Review: I cannot believe that A) only one Amazon customer has written areview of this book or that B) it is out of print! WHAT! This is,quite simply, one of the finest novels I have ever read. It was as tough to put down as any other book I've encountered, and at times as profound as Shakespeare. I've yet to discover any other writer besides Highsmith whose books are both absolutely riveting and thoroughly penetrating about the human condition. At times, it was so suspenseful I thought I was going to have a heart attack. The only other experience I've had in life that was as ravaging as this book is sex. Yet despite its at-times horrifying suspense, it is excruciatingly compassionate; the ending made me weep. Highsmith's characters are unbelievably real; I still can't figure out how she makes us care so much about people who are so flawed and sinful. It's as close to the divine as a writer can get. WOULD SOMEBODY PLEASE PUT THIS BOOK BACK IN PRINT SO I CAN GIVE A COPY TO EVERYONE I KNOW! END
Rating: 
Summary: These people truly were strangers to me.
Review: I don't know why it surprises me to discover that Hollywood has tampered with a novel. Having only seen the Hitchcock film scripted by Raymond Chandler, I was blown away by this early classic from Highsmith. Pretty much the first third of the novel has ended up on screen, but it would seem that Hitch and his associates simply didn't read the rest. Almost everything about this story has been changed. I like the story as Highsmith wrote it. She is a master of suspence. The characters are well drawn and full of ambiguity. Like most everything else I've read by Highsmith, this is both gripping and unnerving. I loved it.
Rating:
Summary: These people truly were strangers to me.
Review: I don't know why it surprises me to discover that Hollywood has tampered with a novel. Having only seen the Hitchcock film scripted by Raymond Chandler, I was blown away by this early classic from Highsmith. Pretty much the first third of the novel has ended up on screen, but it would seem that Hitch and his associates simply didn't read the rest. Almost everything about this story has been changed. I like the story as Highsmith wrote it. She is a master of suspence. The characters are well drawn and full of ambiguity. Like most everything else I've read by Highsmith, this is both gripping and unnerving. I loved it.
Rating: 
Summary: Are they, or aren't they ?
Review: I found the dialog between the two potential accomplices in the train was the best part of the book. The descriptions of the murders were OK, but we've read plenty of those in other books. The thing I found frustrating was the exploration of the characters. I'm still not sure whether Patricia Highsmith was trying to tell us there was homosexuality to explain the attraction between the two main characters. Did I miss something ? Personally, I don't care, but I wish she'd get on with it and let us know one way or the other. Perhaps the book is showing its age...
Rating:
Summary: Are they, or aren't they ?
Review: I found the dialog between the two potential accomplices in the train was the best part of the book. The descriptions of the murders were OK, but we've read plenty of those in other books. The thing I found frustrating was the exploration of the characters. I'm still not sure whether Patricia Highsmith was trying to tell us there was homosexuality to explain the attraction between the two main characters. Did I miss something ? Personally, I don't care, but I wish she'd get on with it and let us know one way or the other. Perhaps the book is showing its age...
Rating:
Summary: Abnormal Psych 101
Review: I had to join in this small but growing chorus of praise for Strangers on a Train. It is a wonderful read - and not just for suspense fans. Forget the film, this book is a dizzying ride through the mind of a man who is unexpectedly confronted with his darker half. Without giving too much away, check it out if only for the scene in the amusement park in Metcalf!By the way, this title is out of print in the U.S. but is in print and available from any British bookstore. I got mine over the internet, with a wait of several weeks for the package to arrive. It was worth the effort! Read this book!
Rating:
Summary: a new fan of Patricia Highsmith
Review: I just finished reading "Strangers on a Train" and have become an instant PH fan. I saw the "Ripley" movie and read the article about Highsmith in the New Yorker so when I came across the British edition at our Friends of the Library I grabbed it up. I rarely read mysteries because I am usually more interested in character development than just plot. I was not disappointed. I hope to "sell" this book to my book club group as the first mystery genre book we have ever read in 10 years. So glad it will be available in August.
Rating:
Summary: William Robert's great reading
Review: In this audiobook, Mr William Roberts reads Patricia Highsmith's "Strangers on a Train" with plenty of enthusiasm and I enjoyed his voice very much. He manages to adapt his intonation beautifully according to the situation, at times tense, then hilarious, then serious again. A great performance.
Rating:
Summary: ...I repeat, do NOT talk to strangers!
Review: It is so rare to pick up a book expecting mild entertainment yet getting so much more. Strangers on a Train is not just a mystery novel (..made into a Hitchcock film), it is a tautly written analysis of how criminals cope (psychologically) after committing a heinous crime (eg, murder). People who have read Crime and Punishment, and especially those who would like to but "couldn't get into it", will love this book. Patricia Highsmith's little gem couldn't have been written any better. As an example dialogue in the novel,.. "Of course I don't think he arranged it," Bruno replied. "You don't seem to realize the calibre of the person you're talking about." "The only calibre ever worth considering is the gun's, Charles." ============ I agree with the previous reviewer's comments about how unfortunate it is for Strangers on a Train to be no longer in print. Maybe with the success of the film The Talented Mr. Ripley other works of Ms. Highsmith, such as this, will be reprinted. For those who can't wait I direct you to www.amazon.co.uk where you will find multiple editions of Strangers on a Train available.
Rating:
Summary: An American Dostoyevsky
Review: Patricia Highsmith's "Strangers on a Train" came out in 1950, attaining prompt bestseller status and intriguing filmdom's master of intrigue, Alfred Hitchcock, enough to fashion a film around it which was released one year later. Highsmith jolted readers with her gripping realism, taking a basically simple but clever plot and carving out something much more. Highsmith's book focuses on two men in their twenties, Charlie Bruno and Guy Haines. The former is of great New York wealth, but is troubled and is headed for cataclysmic disaster, which he appears eager to reach fast through his alcoholic dissipation and all-purpose troublemaking. The latter has worked his way upward from a modest, middle class background in his native Texas to become one of America's premier architects before reaching his thirtieth birthday. Under normal circumstances these individuals would probably never cross paths, but fate intervenes when they travel on the same train and meet as a result of the extroverted Bruno forcing himself on the more introspective Haines, who does not want to appear rude. When Bruno learns that Haines is faced with an unpleasant divorce situation in dealing with a promiscuous wife, the inebriated Bruno jolts his more stable traveling companion by suggesting that they swap murders. Someone who avidly reads mystery books, Bruno states that they would each perform a perfect crime since they would each be killing total strangers and there is nothing to link them to their victims. Bruno wants Haines to kill his father, who is standing in the way of his getting access to the family wealth. The reason for his hatred of his father is also linked to his slavish devotion to his mother, who is seen as a quasi-deity to the troubled young man. Haines leaves the compartment when Bruno is sleeping off his drinking, convinced he will never hear from him again. He does, and under the most frightening circumstances. Highsmith has such a brilliant penchant for plotting mystery that no more will be given away, except to say that the psychological currents and cross-currents put readers squarely into the picture. The author forces the reader to make judgments of their own about life and death, and how we deal with each, and how authority is correlated with society. Are the two in opposition to each other? This is one of the probing questions she asks mainly through the interactions of the characters. Highsmith could be referred to as an American Dostoyevsky. Just as the great nineteenth century Russian author probed the inner mind and the dimensions of guilt within the framework of someone who has taken a human life, the American touches those same roots in an atmosphere of chilling suspense. Bruno and Haines are characters fastened indelibly into the mind after reading Highsmith's explosive novel.
| 
