A Dog’s Ransom – Patricia Highsmith

A Dog’s Ransom examines the theft of an Upper West Side poodle from the perspectives of the owner, the thief, and the young patrolman who makes the case his special mission. The theft, of course, is much more complicated than we first suspect and ultimately leads to more than one human death. Highsmith takes a journalistic approach to the telling. We are aware of dates and times, of physical descriptions and exact geography. I was reminded of In Cold Blood, but with less psychological depth. The result is an account that has great narrative tension but little emotional resonance.

Patrolman Clarence Duhamell emerges as our protagonist, and he is portrayed as a sympathetic, if naive, character. Yet I had trouble believing his need for approval, which materializes as his driving force. For a reportedly intelligent man, his actions often cross the line into dim-wittedness.

Also interfering with the reading experience were the typos that riddled my edition. I don’t think I’ve ever read a book that contained so many proofreading mistakes.