1 Patricia Highsmith, an American crime writer whose dark, psychological tales of murder and intrigue thrilled readers worldwide, died Saturday. She was 74.
2 She died at Locarno's Carita hospital, according to a hospital official. No cause of death was given.
3 Highsmith's first novel, 'Strangers on a Train,' was published in 1950. Alfred Hitchcock made it into a movie the following year.
4 She wrote some 20 novels and seven short-story collections. She was perhaps best known for the character of Tom Ripley, a charming gentleman-murderer who was at the center of five of her novels. Her last novel in 1991 was 'Ripley Under Water.'
5 Her novels won wide critical acclaim. Graham Greene once described her as a 'writer who has created a world of her own -- a world claustrophobic and irrational which we enter each time with a sense of personal danger.'
6 Many of her principal characters, even if they had killed someone, escaped justice.
7 'Solving a murder case leaves me completely indifferent. Is there anything more artificial and boring than justice?' she wrote.
8 'I invent stories, it is not my aim to morally rearm the reader, I want to entertain,' she said.
9 Her haunting, harrowing tales were published in 20 languages. She was especially popular in Europe, which she adopted as her home about 35 years ago.
10 She lived in Italy, England and France before settling in a quiet sunny corner of Switzerland near the town of Locarno.
11 Ms. Highsmith never married. Her parents divorced shortly after she was born in Fort Worth, Texas. She never hid the fact that she disliked her mother, who married Stanley Highsmith and then took Patricia to New York when she was six years old.

She wrote some 20 novels and seven short - story collections . She was perhaps best known for the character of Tom Ripley , a charming gentleman - murderer who was at the center of five of her novels . Her last novel in 1991 was " Ripley Under Water . "
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Why did she stop writing novels in 1991?