The Talented Mr Ripley - Ripley, Bk 1 Author:Patricia Highsmith Ripley is back. This new publication of Patricia Highsmith's classic inaugurates the complete Ripley series at Norton. — Since his debut in 1955, Tom Ripley has evolved into the ultimate bad boy sociopath, influencing countless novelists and filmmakers. In this first novel, we are introduced to suave, handsome Tom Ripley: a young striv... more »er, newly arrived in the heady world of Manhattan in the 1950s. A product of a broken home, branded a "sissy" by his dismissive Aunt Dottie, Ripley becomes enamored of the moneyed world of his new friend, Dickie Greenleaf. This fondness turns obsessive when Ripley is sent to Italy to bring back his libertine pal but grows enraged by Dickie's ambivalent feelings for Marge, a charming American dilettante. A dark reworking of Henry James's The Ambassadors, The Talented Mr. Ripley -- immortalized in the 1998 film starring Matt Damon, Jude Law, and Gywneth Paltrow -- is an unforgettable introduction to this debonair confidence man, whose talent for self-invention and calculated murder is chronicled in four subsequent novels.« less
Linda K. (Fluffycat6) reviewed The Talented Mr. Ripley (Ripley, Bk 1) on
I went in search of this book because of the movie. I must say that I found the book to be just "okay." Ms. Highsmith's Ripley was not an interesting character apart from being a pure sociopath. In my never to be humble opinion the movie took the somewhat dull elements and plot of a somewhat boring book and fleshed them out to add much more intrigue and tension. It was the book Ms. Highsmith would have written if she were a better writer. I don't recommend the book to fans of the movie. Sorry.