the novel The two faces of January by Patricia Highsmith won the prestigious British Dagger Award in 1964 as the best foreign crime novel. Possibly precisely because it breaks genre conventions. Highsmith was less interested in the thriller plot of the material than in the psychodrama that this story is above all. She has achieved the feat of having the characters often do something unexpected, even against their better judgment, but never seem unbelievable. It is therefore not an attempted, flimsy constructed otherness that is intended to make the characters appear interesting. Rather, one is captivated by an irritating but nevertheless understandable irrationality of thought and action in extreme situations for these ambivalent characters and the fatal course of things.
Radio play: “The Two Faces of January” by Patricia Highsmith – Media
