Vic becomes fascinated with the unsolved murder of one of Melinda's former lovers, Malcolm McRae, and takes credit for it in order to successfully drive away her current fling.

One night, at a party held in the home of their neighbors, the Cowans, Vic and Charley find themselves alone in the backyard swimming pool.

Many of the neighbors refuse to cooperate due to Vic's good standing and the police's theory that Tony and Melinda were planning to run away together.

Vic escapes apprehension once more and, to his surprise, finds Melinda more courteous, even loving, toward him, which suggests to him that she wishes for them to start over again.

Anthony Boucher, reviewing the novel in The New York Times, praised Highsmith's "coming of age as a novelist", and noted that Deep Water was "incomparably stronger in subtlety and depth of characterization" than her first novel, Strangers on a Train.

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Flynn stated:About ten or fifteen years ago, I came across it in a used-book store.

And, it being a marital thriller where all the phobias and fears and darkness are based mostly inside a couple's home, that has always interested me, that in-your-face warfare between a husband and wife.