New York Times • Times Critics Top Books of 2021The Times (of London) • Best Books of the YearExcerpted in The New YorkerProfiled in The Los Angeles TimesPublishing for the centenary of her birth, Patricia Highsmith's diaries "offer the most complete picture ever published" of the canonical author (New York Times).Relegated to the genre of mystery during her lifetime, Patricia Highsmith is now recognized as one of "our greatest modernist writers" (Gore Vidal). Beloved by fans who were unaware of the real psychological turmoil behind her prose, the famously secretive Highsmith refused to authorize a biography, instead sequestering herself in her Switzerland home in her final years. Posthumously, her devoted editor Anna von Planta discovered her diaries and notebooks in 1995, tucked in a closet—with tantalizing instructions to be read.For years thereafter, von Planta meticulously culled from...