Smooth-talking Stuart Hammer meets Ned Stowe and immediately recognizes him for unhappy and desperate. Ned loves his mistress but is married to sharp tongued Helena, who has the money that keeps Ned from divorcing her. Stuart is an employee of his uncle's thriving business but wants to be the boss himself. When Stuart presents his plan to fix both his and Ned's problems, Ned jumps at the chance, as his unhappiness keeps him from considering the fact that he isn't a killer and that he really can't keep his mouth shut.

Does this plot sound familiar? Published in 1958, the author (Cecil Day-Lewis) includes a note explaining that it wasn't until after publication that he heard of Patricia Highsmith's Strangers on a Train, published eight years earlier.
This was an engaging tale of double murder, with one man so comfortable with murder, and the other being his polar opposite. ( )