Ripley Under Ground (Ripley) (Vintage crime / Black lizard)

by Patricia Highsmith

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Book cover for Ripley Under Ground

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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).
  • ISBN10 0393332136
  • ISBN13 9780393332131
  • Publish Date 7 July 2009 (first published 22 February 1973)
  • Publish Status Active
  • Publish Country US
  • Imprint WW Norton & Co
  • Format Paperback
  • Pages 288
  • Language English