Strangers on a Train

Highsmith's first published novel begins with a chance meeting. Guy Haines, a young architect, is travelling to see his estranged wife, who will not agree to a divorce. On the train he talks with Charles Bruno, a charming and unstable stranger, who comes up with a scheme: each could remove the person who troubles the other's life, and no one would suspect a link.

Guy dismisses it as a joke, but Bruno does not. The novel follows the growing menace and the pressure on Guy's conscience. It is a gripping study of guilt and obsession, and was famously adapted for film by Alfred Hitchcock.