This book wasn’t really what I expected. When I first picked it up I expected it to be a story about two crazy individuals that team up and scheme about killing someone in each others lives. Yes, Bruno is insane, but Guy doesn’t seem like he wants the murders to happen. He did admit to thinking about it but he also said that it was only a thought and nothing he would actually do. Bruno on the other hand is particularly interesting. For some reason while reading the book I pictured Owen Wilson as Bruno and Danny DeVito as Guy, which he was in the movie Throw Momma from a Train, that followed a similar plot line.
While reading the story all I kept thinking was wow, Bruno is really crazy! I hated the way that he brought up murder so casually and talked as if it was simply and easy. It made me hate Bruno, but at the same time I wanted to read more about him, because he was so crazy. What I thought was even more surprising was that Bruno actually murdered Miriam, even though I didn’t remember Guy agreeing to it. Maybe I missed that part in the book, but I didn’t remembering reading the part where Guy tells Bruno to go ahead with the plan. I thought it was very interesting how Bruno went about killing Miriam. He seemed to treat it almost as a game. He basically stalked her all the way to an amusement park, and continued to follow her there, participating in all the activities that Miriam and her group were doing, including rowing a boat at a lake to an island At first I thought that Bruno was just trying to get a feel of what Miriam was like, until he just hopped out of his boat and strangled her. That whole scene was just horrific, especially the way Highsmith describes it. He included enough detail to just make you cringe, but that was it. He didn’t go overboard with his description, which I think made the whole scene that much worse. Because you could visualize what was happening and then your adding your own details to fill in what was left out. I admire Highsmiths ability to write such an intriguing story about a horrendous topic, while making murder seem like a normal thing that most people do. I am actually interested in seeing what the second half of the book has to offer, and I want to see what happens to Bruno.
~simplyelle
