The Talented Mr. Ripley (Unabridged)
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4.2 • 9 Ratings
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- $17.99
Publisher Description
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 striver, 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 he 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.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
A charming criminal inserts himself into a wayward friend’s wealthy family in Patricia Highsmith’s classic psychological thriller. Fleeing his broken home and dangerous rumors about his sexuality, small-time scammer Tom Ripley tastes the good life when he’s hired by the father of his rich acquaintance Dickie Greenleaf to go find the young playboy and bring him home from a prolonged Italian holiday. Once there, Ripley uses his carefully honed charm and amoral wiles to make Dickie’s luxurious life his own—at any cost. The legendary Highsmith hit a high note in this creepy classic, introducing the smooth sociopath Ripley with all his irresistible—and deadly—appeal. Making himself at home in the idyllic Italian setting, her brilliantly evil antihero is impossibly seductive, and with his cool delivery, narrator Kevin Kenerly captures Ripley’s diabolical drive. Peak Highsmith, The Talented Mr. Ripley remains one of the most chilling crime novels of the last century.
