The Cry of the Owl by Patricia Highsmith
20th Century – Noir – Suspense – Thriller
Best known for Strangers on a Train and the Ripley novels, Highsmith was best with psychopaths and stalkers. His marriage in ruins and his sexuality in doubt, Robert Forester starts observing and then stalking a young woman, who befriends him. But in this odd and awful small-town tragedy, few things are what they seem, fewer people can be trusted, the dead live, the past returns and the stalker may be the least evil person we meet. Highsmith at her most acidic.
In a Lonely Place by Dorothy B. Hughes
20th Century – Noir – Suspense – Thriller
Dix Steele is aimless in Los Angeles after World War II, a former Air Force pilot who now sponges off a rich relative while prowling out of the way places and following women out on their own. But is he the strangler that is haunting the city? And will his war buddy, now a cop, figure out what Dix has become? We spend the novel inside the mind of the charming, volatile sociopath while wondering when he will make a mistake and when we, like his friend Brub, will know for sure what Dix has done.
Beast in View by Margaret Millar
20th Century – Noir – Suspense – Thriller
Who is Evelyn Merrick and why is she calling? Nothing good happens anytime this mysterious stalker calls, and while Millar’s febrile psychological thriller may resemble a standard “find the stalker” potboiler, the thrills come not from figuring it all out but the fascination about what drives Merrick and the titillation from what she will do next. The madness behind Merrick’s behavior is a dreadful poison for anyone it touches and Millar’s mid-century classic deserves revisiting.
The Literary Voyeur 