Discusses how to design, draft, write, and revise a thriller novel or screenplay, with examples from books and movies, covering topics such as characters, opening scenes, how to maintain tension and create conflicts and obstacles, incorporate plot twists, and other related topics.

"Made famous by the great success of her psychological thrillers, The Talented Mr Ripley and Strangers on a Train, Patricia Highsmith is lauded as one of the most influential and celebrated modern writers. However, there has never been a clear picture of the woman behind the books. The relationship between Highsmith's lesbianism, her fraught personality - by parts self-destructive and malicious - and her fiction, has been largely avoided by biographers....