Ripley Under Ground

Mystery and thriller · Noir

Print length: 285 pagesW.W. Norton & Co., 2008

Description

Tom Ripley lives comfortably in a French villa with a wealthy wife and an extensive art collection. His privileged existence follows the murder of Dickie Greenleaf and the inheritance that resulted, but the peace of his new life depends on elaborate deceptions. An art-forgery operation he established is beginning to collapse under scrutiny, and a phone call from London disrupts his apparent security. Ripley crosses the Channel to silence an inquisitive American and protect the fraud as growing scrutiny threatens the comfortable world he has built on crime.

Reading profile

About this profile

Collected’s assessment, not reader ratings. Complexity runs from 1 (least demanding) to 5 (most demanding).

Writing: How much attention the sentences and language require.
Ideas: How much interpretation or abstract reasoning the book asks of you.
Structure: How much you need to keep track of speakers, timelines and connections.
Background knowledge: Prior knowledge needed to follow the book, beyond what it explains.
Emotional intensity: Emotional pressure, from gentle (1) to intense (5). Separate from difficulty.

Writing style

Atmospheric · Direct · Spare

Pace

Brisk

Tone

Dark · Suspenseful · Tense · Unsettling

Structure

Linear

Focus

Character · Mystery · Plot

Emotional intensity

4 / 5

Reading complexity

1–5 · higher means more demanding

Writing: 3 / 5
Ideas: 3 / 5
Structure: 3 / 5
Background knowledge: 2 / 5

Themes

Art and creativityCrime and punishmentIdentityMoralityObsessionWealth

About Patricia Highsmith

Patricia Highsmith was an American novelist and short-story writer whose nearly five-decade career centered on psychological suspense. She is best known for the five novels featuring Tom Ripley, a cultivated criminal whose deceptions bring her recurring concerns with identity and conventional morality into sharp focus. Highsmith typically treats crime less as a puzzle than as pressure applied to a mind or relationship. Her direct, often spare prose draws readers close to compromised perspectives without telling them what to think, creating unease through identification rather than spectacle. She sometimes alternates between principal viewpoints, while premises such as the proposed exchange of murders in Strangers on a Train or the corrosive marital arrangement in Deep Water let guilt and complicity pass between characters. Her range also extended beyond the thriller: The Price of Salt follows a love affair between two women with the same close attention to isolation, desire, and social constraint. Across these different settings, Highsmith’s distinction lies in the calm precision with which she makes unstable moral positions feel intimate and plausible.

Series

Ripley · Book 2

The Talented Mr. Ripley

Book details

For the print edition listed above.

Publisher: W.W. Norton & Co.
Language: English
ISBN: 9780393332131

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