Alas, there's nothing revolutionary about Little Tales of Misogyny, a thin collection of failed fables in which various hairy, possessive or over-fecund women are murdered by their mates. It would be wrong to read these stories as indirectly feminist satires on dependency, because the real centre of their inspiration is the delight which Patricia Highsmith everwhere shows for the brutal ways in which these unlikely women are first murdered and then 'thrown away as one might throw away a cricket lighter when it is used up'. The style of these sterile anecdotes, moreover, is baldly second-rate: 'Christine was absolutely no loss to Philippe except for burial fees', and so on. (p. 745)

Tom Paulin, "Mortem Virumque Cano," in New Statesman (© 1977 The Statesman & Nation Publishing Co. Ltd.), Vol. 94, No. 2436, November 25, 1977, pp. 744-45.∗