A GAME FOR THE LIVING

Ramón had done it. Obviously! He thought about Ramón, his Catholic soul trapped in his passion for Lelia. He'd find Ramón and see that he paid with his life for what he had done.'

In A Game for the Living, threads of sexual jealousy and guilt are shot through with all Patricia Highsmith's uncanny talent for the unexpected.

Ramón mends furniture. Theodore paints. A devout Catholic, Ramón lives in Mexico City, not far from where he was born into poverty. Theodore, a rich German transplanted to a country where money buys some comfort but no peace, believes in nothing at all.

You'd think the two had nothing in common. Except, of course, that both had slept with Lelia. The two were good friends, so neither minded sharing her affections. They did mind, however, when Lelia was found raped, murdered, and horribly mutilated. The two friends, suspects both, twist in a limbo of tension and doubt, each seeking his own form of solace and truth.

A thrilling, psychologically complex novel, rich with setting, A Game for the Living is Highsmith at her best.