Strangers on a Train

Strangers on a Train is a psychological thriller by the American writer Patricia Highsmith, published in 1950 and her first novel. It was adapted into a film by Alfred Hitchcock in 1951.

Guy Haines, a successful architect who is in the middle of a divorce, meets Charles Bruno on a train and tells him more about his life than he meant to, including his frustration with the wife he is trying to leave and the plans he has for the life he means to build afterwards.

Bruno proposes an arrangement: he will kill Guy's wife and Guy will kill Bruno's father, so that neither man can be tied to the murder he actually carried out. Guy refuses, and the novel follows what happens when refusing turns out to be different from it being over, as Bruno refuses to let the plan drop and Guy's ordinary life starts to come apart at the edges.

Highsmith writes about ordinary people who prove capable of extraordinary crimes, a theme she returned to throughout her career, and the book turns on the slow entanglement of the two men rather than on any detection. It is a standalone novel.