num_pages: 288
description: For two years, Walter Stackhouse has been a faithful and supportive husband to his wife, Clara. She is distant and neurotic, and Walter finds himself harboring gruesome fantasies about her demise. When Clara's dead body turns up at the bottom of a cliff in a manner uncannily resembling the recent death of a woman named Helen Kimmel who was murdered by her husband, Walter finds himself under scrutiny. He commits several blunders that claim his career and his reputation, cost him his friends, and eventually threaten his life. The Blunderer examines the dark obsessions that lie beneath the surface of seemingly ordinary people. With unerring psychological insight, Patricia Highsmith portrays characters who cross the precarious line separating fantasy from reality.NB: The title in England was changed to Lament for a Lover.
language: English
title: The Blunderer
titlecomplete: The Blunderer
characters: Walter Stackhouse, Bill Ireton, Lieutenant Lawrence Corby, Jon Carr, Betty Ireton, Helen Kimmel, Ellie Briess, Melchior Kimmel, Clara Stackhouse, Pete Slotnikoff
genres: American, Noir, Mystery, Female Authors, Suspense, Thriller, 20th Century, Fiction, Mystery Thriller, Crime
ratings_count: 2865
places: Long Island, New York, New York (State)
publisher: W. W. Norton & Company