The Talented Mr. Ripley

The Talented Mr. Ripley is a psychological crime novel by the American writer Patricia Highsmith, published in 1955, introducing her recurring character Tom Ripley, a small-time con artist in New York who is hired by a wealthy shipping magnate to travel to Italy and persuade his son Dickie Greenleaf to return home. Once in Italy, Ripley becomes fascinated by, and increasingly envious of, Dickie's wealth, ease and charm, ingratiating himself into Dickie's life until Dickie tires of him and tries to end the friendship, at which point Ripley kills him, forges his signature, and begins impersonating Dickie to gain access to his money and identity, then kills a second man, Dickie's friend Freddie Miles, when his deception threatens to unravel. Rather than building toward Ripley's capture or moral reckoning, Highsmith structures the novel entirely around his cool, resourceful evasion of suspicion, inviting the reader to identify with a protagonist whose crimes go unpunished and whose talent is, in the end, simply his gift for imposture and self-invention. The novel won the 1957 Grand Prix de Littérature Policière and established Ripley as the central figure of Highsmith's five-book Ripliad, a series that continued to follow him as a wealthy, murderous expatriate long after his first crimes. The Talented Mr. Ripley has been repeatedly adapted for film and television, most notably in 1999 and again in a 2024 television series.