Psycho is a suspense

Suspense

Suspense is a feeling of uncertainty and anxiety about the outcome of certain actions, most often referring to an audience's perceptions in a dramatic work. Suspense is not exclusive to fiction, though. Suspense may operate in any situation where there is a lead-up to a big event or dramatic...

 novel

Novel

A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....

 by Robert Bloch

Robert Bloch

Robert Albert Bloch was a prolific American writer, primarily of crime, horror and science fiction. He is best known as the writer of Psycho, the basis for the film of the same name by Alfred Hitchcock...

. It was adapted into Alfred Hitchcock

Alfred Hitchcock

Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE was a British film director and producer. He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in British cinema in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood...

's seminal 1960 film of the same name

Psycho (1960 film)

Psycho is a 1960 American suspense/psychological horror film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Janet Leigh and Anthony Perkins. The film is based on the screenplay by Joseph Stefano, who adapted it from the 1959 novel of the same name by Robert Bloch...

.
Norman Bates

Norman Bates

Norman Bates is a fictional character created by writer Robert Bloch as the central character in his novel Psycho, and portrayed by Anthony Perkins as the main antagonist of the 1960 film of the same name directed by Alfred Hitchcock...

 is a middle-aged bachelor who is dominated by his mother

Norma Bates (Psycho)

Mrs. Norma Bates is a fictional character in the novel Psycho by Robert Bloch and the Universal Studios Psycho franchise starring Anthony Perkins, Psycho, Psycho II, Psycho III, Psycho IV: The Beginning and the TV spin-off Bates Motel...

, a mean-tempered, puritanical

Puritan

The Puritans were a significant grouping of English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries. Puritanism in this sense was founded by some Marian exiles from the clergy shortly after the accession of Elizabeth I of England in 1558, as an activist movement within the Church of England...

 old woman who forbids him to have a life away from her. They run a small motel

Bates Motel

Bates Motel is a 1987 television movie about Alex West, a mentally disturbed youth who was committed to an asylum after killing his abusive stepfather. There he befriends Norman Bates and ends up inheriting the infamous Bates Motel.-Plot:...

 together in Fairvale, California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

, but business has floundered ever since the state moved the highway. In the middle of a heated argument between them, a customer arrives, a young woman named Mary Crane, who, unbeknownst to Bates, is on the run after stealing $40,000 from her boss; she stole the money so she and her boyfriend, Sam Loomis, could afford to get married.