Howard Ingham finds it strange that no one has written to him since he arrived in Tunisia; Not the movie director he's supposed to meet, not his girlfriend from New York, who misses him (or at least that's what he hopes). While he waits at a beach resort, unable to make progress on the script he has gone to write, he begins a new novel about a man who leads an amoral double life. Howard also befriends a fellow American with a taste for Scotch whiskey and a suspicious interest in the Soviet Union, and a Dane with an intense distrust of Arabs. When bad news finally reaches him from his country, Howard thinks that he had better stay in Tunisia and continue writing, despite the tremors that fill the air with violence and tension, with an ambiguous morality.
"From my point of view, Highsmith's best novel, and if you asked me what it's about, I would say it's about restlessness" (Gra...read more
