The works of Patricia Highsmith are recognized as literary classics of the 20th century. Critics in America and Europe, fellow writers, have always spoken of the writer’s work only in superlatives. “The Two Faces of January” is one of her best works. This is an action-packed novel-parable about a poet who decides to break the law, trying to heal an old mental wound, about a seemingly prosperous businessman who actually made a fortune through fraud, about a woman who for the first of the characters personifies the past, and for the second gives hope for the future. The novel, set in the Mediterranean in the month dedicated to the two-faced god Janus, asks the question: what is more important - the voice of blood or primal instinct?