He bought a used book and found inside a letter from someone he knew: “The Turning Points of Life.”

Martina Insanti bought the novelstrangers on a train,” by Patricia Highsmith, hoping to stumble across a murder-swap story. However, he was surprised when, opening the book, he found not only the beginning of that story but also that of another, much more personal one.

Inside his 1950 edition of the classic was a letter dated “Thursday the 30th.” Neither more nor less: “Thursday 30”. What month? Which year? It is not known.

Luckily Martina didn’t want to keep her confusion to herself. From her account she X her (@comittatus) she shared a photo of her letter and her story quickly went viral.

“I bought a used book and saw it had this letter in it, I read it and the name of the person signing it sounded familiar. It turns out that a friend’s grandmother wrote it. Used books and the twists and turns of life“, commented the young woman next to the image.

When questioned about the discovery, the literature student at the National University of Mar del Plata told Clarín that she purchased the book through a batch of used texts from a house in Mar del Plata that is selling its entire library.

The letter reads: “Thursday 30. Dear Delia. I don’t deserve an apology, but I ask for it. A thousand thanks. I take advantage of the librarian’s good disposition to return the book to her. I gave up the night hours. They became heavier and heavier and you have to go there with a special disposition. Do you teach? I have lost track of you to this day. Until we meet again. I’m sorry (if possible).” The signature of “María Angélica Álvarez”.

The author of the message was a professor of European Literature and Culture at the same university where Martina studies, who – according to the student – died in 2017. And, given that she is currently studying literature, as soon as she read her name she thought so he recognized. He thought he had seen it somewhere.

“My friend has lived in Spain for years and we have lost touch a bit, but our parents continue to talk to each other and see each other from time to time and from them I learned that his grandmother was involved – in something – in my career ( I didn’t know I won’t be able to take anything with her),” Insanti said.

Knowing this, she searched the Internet for information related to her studies and soon realized something that left her speechless: “I discovered that I had PDFs of texts written by her on Google Drive that had been given to me as a mandatory bibliography when I had followed the subject she taught at university!”.

To reconfirm it, Martina asked her friend’s parents if the author of the letter was the teacher and they told her yes. “Crazy“, concludes the young woman.

And so part of the story ends. The writing she found by chance in “Strangers on a Train” was written by someone he knew. While the nobility obliges, the same cannot be said of the other key part of the story. The one strictly linked to the content of the letter.

Involuntarily, fate and social networks have honored Highsmith and his team suspense generally. As in many crime texts, the half-information, the simple beginning of an exchange of letters, generated an intrigue that grew by the minute. Otherwise, how does a tweet like Martina’s reach 14 thousand likes in one day?

Has Delia forgiven María Angélica? Has María Angélica met Delia again? Did Delia receive the book returned by María? Unanswered questions from another story that, for now, also leave this article unfinished.