The basis for two films, a radio adaptation, and a stage play, Patricia Highsmith’s 1955 bestseller has become the blueprint for the ‘sympathetic anti-hero’ novel. Tom Ripley is dissatisfied with his life, scraping by in New York. When he gets the chance to visit Italy he jumps at it, pretending to a rich man that he’s friends with his playboy son, Dickie Greenleaf. Tom is soon charmed by Dickie’s sybaritic life and beautiful girlfriend Marge – but when he realises his new friend is tiring of him, he kills him with an oar then sinks the boat they’re on. From then on he takes over Dickie’s life.
You should read it because: it inverts the traditional format where we follow the detective character and root for the killer to be caught; it helped to forge the modern psychological thriller; it’s a masterclass in how to work with anti-heroes.
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