The Blunderer

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The Blunderer
First edition (US)
Author	Patricia Highsmith
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre	Suspense
Publisher	Coward-McCann (US)
Publication date	1954
Media type	Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages	288 pp
ISBN	0-393-32244-0
OCLC	48053872
Dewey Decimal	813/.54 21
LC Class	PS3558.I366 B58 2001

The Blunderer (1954) is a psychological thriller novel by Patricia Highsmith.

The Blunderer was Highsmith's third book, written in between Strangers on a Train and The Talented Mr Ripley.

Synopsis

For years, mild mannered lawyer Walter Stackhouse has suffered as a result of his neurotic, unstable wife Clara, whose constant alienation of all his friends, coupled with her penchant for overly dramatic gestures, has slowly driven him to hate her. After he becomes infatuated with the sweet and sensuous music teacher Ellie Briess, Clara jealously attempts suicide via an overdose, forcing him into her arms once again. However, he eventually stands his ground and demands a divorce. When Clara subsequently turns up dead, having fallen off a cliff during a bus trip to see her dying mother, Walter finds himself blundering around in the dark as the official investigation ensues. He admits that he stalked her bus in his car, whilst daydreaming about the possibility of killing her at the first stop, just as Melchior J. Kimmel, a 40-year-old bookshop manager, murdered his own domineering partner Helen, an unsolved crime that Walter had read of in the paper and grown fascinated by.

Both men soon encounter the formidable, possibly psychotic Lieutenant Lawrence Corby, a police officer with savage ambition who is convinced of their guilt and believes that they are somehow in cahoots with one another. He soon begins encroaching on his suspects' lives, sowing the seeds of doubt into the minds of those they care for and even ferociously assaulting Kimmel.

Film Adaptations

"The Blunderer" was filmed as "Le Meurtrier" by Claude Autant-Lara in 1963.

References

2001, The Blunderer, W. W. Norton & Company, ISBN 978-0-393-32244-6

External links

The Blunderer on ChooseYourHighsmith.com

The novels of Patricia Highsmith

Strangers on a Train (1950)
The Price of Salt (as Claire Morgan) (1952)
The Blunderer (1954)
The Talented Mr. Ripley (1955)
Deep Water (1957)
A Game for the Living (1958)
This Sweet Sickness (1960)
The Cry of the Owl (1962)
The Two Faces of January (1964) The Glass Cell (1964)
A Suspension of Mercy (1965)
Those Who Walk Away (1967)
The Tremor of Forgery (1969)
Ripley Under Ground (1970)
A Dog's Ransom (1972)
Ripley's Game (1974)
Edith's Diary (1977)
The Boy Who Followed Ripley (1980)
People Who Knock on the Door (1983)
Found in the Street (1987)
Ripley Under Water (1991)
Small g: a Summer Idyll (1995)

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