Book #203 of 2025: Ripley Under Water by Patricia Highsmith (The Ripliad #5) Author Patricia Highsmith’s final novel about the amoral Tom Ripley is unfortunately also her weakest. The only thing driving the plot this time is that a new couple has moved into town, seemingly with the express purpose of tormenting the antihero whom …
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Book #192 of 2025: The Boy Who Followed Ripley by Patricia Highsmith (The Ripliad #4) Two observations I made earlier in this series continue to prove fruitful in shaping my understanding of Mr. Thomas Ripley: that his adventures can be as ludicrous as those of Dexter Morgan on TV, and that he’s best read as …
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Book #181 of 2025: Ripley’s Game by Patricia Highsmith (The Ripliad #3) On a plot level, this third Tom Ripley novel plays out similarly to the first two, seeing our sociopathic protagonist get involved in yet another illegal enterprise that seems like it could have been avoided, whereupon he’s eventually driven to murder, dispose of …
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Book #170 of 2025: Ripley Under Ground by Patricia Highsmith (The Ripliad #2) I’m finally checking out the rest of the Talented Mr. Ripley series, beginning with this first sequel that followed in 1970 (fifteen years after the original volume, although only six have passed for our protagonist). When we rejoin him, he’s living a …
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Book #159 of 2025: The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith (The Ripliad #1) Tom Ripley, as depicted in this 1955 crime thriller, its four sequels, and their various screen adaptations, is a pretty great creation. He’s insecure and sociopathic, with author Patricia Highsmith painting him as almost pedestrian in his casual amorality and petty …
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TV #47 of 2025: Ripley, season 1 It’s been seven years since I read Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr. Ripley, and I’ve never seen any of the previous adaptations, so I’ll mostly be judging this Netflix miniseries on its own terms. And the first thing to note is that it’s a strikingly gorgeous production, filmed …
Book #221 of 2018: The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith (The Ripliad #1) The plot to this mid-century crime thriller is admittedly thin, but it’s an outstanding character study of the insecure and sociopathic Tom Ripley. His author Patricia Highsmith paints Ripley as almost pedestrian in his casual amorality and petty jealousies, and while …
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