My first Patricia Highsmith and I loved it. The story starts with the perfect murder. Existing perfectly, it is admired and maybe emulated. Maybe not. Where your sympathies are at the beginning will not be where they rest at the end. The reader is constantly forced to re-evaluate--as characters distance themselves from each other, eventually you will do the same. The perfect life seems only a breath away….but instead each breath blows it further out of reach. A constant un-nerving unraveling of proper lives amidst improper thoughts. At first the title seemed awkward and ill-fitting but as the story went on, each chapter added brush strokes darkening the title until it fit perfectly by the end . Marvelous ending that shocked and left me a little bit sick. But in a good way.