Those Who Walk Away [Hardcover]

Patricia Highsmith (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1967

The honeymoon is over, as they say, the bride dead by her own hand. Ray Garrett, the grieving husband, convinces the police in Rome of his innocence, but not his thuggish father-in-law, an American painter named Ed Coleman, who shoots him at point-blank range and leaves him for dead. Ray survives, however, and follows Coleman to Venice, where the two fall into an eerie game of cat-and-mouse—Coleman obsessed with vengeance and Ray equally insistent on clearing his conscience, though each is at once the hunter and the hunted in a duel composed of tension, hiding, and guessing, and at times punctuated by violence that, even as each manages to walk away, draws them nearer to death.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: William Heinemann Ltd; First Edition edition (February 1967)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0434335053
• ISBN-13: 978-0434335053
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,076,563 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Patricia Highsmith (1921-1995) was the author of more than twenty novels, including Strangers on a Train, The Price of Salt and The Talented Mr. Ripley, as well as numerous short stories.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another Highsmith masterpiece, November 26, 2000

By 

Joseph W. Smith III - See all my reviews

This review is from: Those Who Walk Away (Paperback)

Highsmith is my favorite author, and this is one of her best books -- second only to "Strangers on a Train," among the 11 Highsmiths I've read. Yes, it's a fairly suspenseful tale -- in places a real page-turner (though for sheer, unvarnished terror you can't beat "Strangers on a Train" or "The Cry of the Owl"); but it's really a book about relationships: about identity, isolation, and forgiveness, one so profound that it could be read and discussed almost endlessly.

Highsmith's ability to make readers care for flawed and even sinful characters is astonishing; there simply is NO ONE who compares to her. The ending of this book is so deeply compassionate it made me weep -- something I do very rarely with novels of any kind.

Help me, please -- is there anyone out there who feels the way I do about Highsmith, or have I lost my mind? If I have, I hope I do not find it again until I have read all of her books.

Thanks, Atlantic Monthly Press, for making these books available in the United States; how about putting "Strangers on a Train" and "This Sweet Sickness" back in print as well? For anybody who's curious about Highsmith, "Those Who Walk Away" is an excellent place to start.

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Done Just Right, August 16, 2001

By 

Mcgivern Owen L (NY, NY USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Those Who Walk Away (Paperback)

"Those Who Walk Away" is a concise, fast reading novel of low-keyed suspense. The background is an appropriately gloomy wintertime Venice. Ray, the key character, has lost his wife to suicide. Ed is the unforgiving, not to mention self-centered, father in law who blames Ray for his daughter's death and tries to kill him. Ray pursues Ed through the canals, back streets, cafes, gondola rides and fancy hotels of Venice to clear his conscience and calm Ed down. The embittered Ed has none of this and chases Ray in the same fashion. Both find atmospheric Venetian "hiding places". To use a movie term, Highsmith makes use of an excellent supporting cast: Signor Ciardi, Inez, Luigi the gondolier and Elisabetta almost steal the show from the main characters. Highsmith also pulls the reader into the plot quickly, a talent of hers. We are involved from page one! The ending, which no reviewer should reveal, is smooth and satisfying. To fully enjoy the tale, the reader must surrender credibility on 2 points: 1) Those "meetings" between Ed and Ray are truly coincidental and 2) The Venetian police, as personified by Detective Dell'Isola, ask few questions and press few charges. I would give the author her license on those points and enjoy "TWWA" on its own merits. A closing question: Did Ray really let a nice Italian girl like Elisabetta get away? Did he ever go back to Venice to see her just once more?

9 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An intense psychological thriller!!!!!, September 14, 2000

By 

Christopher Taylor (Washington, District of Columbia United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Those Who Walk Away (Paperback)

First Off.. I must state: I LOOOVED THIS BOOK!!! Why? Well because I've read loads of novels and only a few in my life time ( So far, of course) have held me in such suspense near the end, that I find myself reading every two words at a time. LOL!! If you're looking for action and mayhem, don't read this book. However, if you're looking to be subtly entrance in a wonderfully orchestrated character driven thriller of two men playing a deadly game of cat-and-mouse across Rome and Italy, then this is the novel for you! Patricia Highsmith is an author I hadn't heard much of before, but after recently reading The Talented Mr. Ripley and viewing the film, I was more than tempted to read other novels by her. She was such a gifted writer who must've traveled a lot because you get the feeling ( while reading ) that you're actually there, with the characters, in Rome and Venice constantly sipping on sweet bourbon and cognac. Though, for all it's great narrative techniques, it's also a suspensful tale that raises questions about revenge!! Should we let our loathsome feelings get in the way of our friendships? How far should we go to prove our innocence? If these are questions you'll willing to ask and willing to find the answers too, then this exceptional-character-study-of-a-novel will be the ticket to an orginal concept. ORDER IT NOW! ASAP!!

Also recommended: The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith and Expendable by James Alan Gardner!