Ripley Under Water - Patricia Highsmith

Now part of American film and literary lore, Tom Ripley, a bisexual psychopath and art forger who murders without remorse when his comforts are threatened ( New York Times Book Review ), was Patricia Highsmith's favorite creation. In these volumes, we find Ripley ensconced on a French estate with a wealthy wife, a world-class art collection, and a past to hide. In Ripley Under Ground (1970), an art forgery goes awry and Ripley is threatened with exposure; in The Boy Who Followed Ripley (1980), Highsmith explores Ripley's bizarrely paternal relationship with a troubled young runaway, whose abduction draws them into Berlin's seamy underworld; and in Ripley Under Water (1991), Ripley is confronted by a snooping American couple obsessed with the disappearance of an art collector who visited Ripley years before. More than any other American literary character, Ripley provides a lens to peer into the sinister machinations of human behavior (John Freeman, Pittsburgh Gazette ).