THE STORY-TELLER
by Patricia Highsmith
The story-teller is Sydney Bartleby who lives in an old house in rural England with his wife, Alicia; he writes tv scripts; she paints; they quarrel. And—well— Sydney's a plotter and sometimes he thinks of killing Alicia, but she disappears, for weeks and weeks, and their mutual friends and the little old lady next door and the police suspect that he has killed her...As before, Patricia Highsmith keeps her story teeter-tottering between the intent to kill and the actuality and it is handled with the niggling nastiness she manages so well.