REVIEW Ü TEXASBEERGUIDE.COM ↠ Patricia Highsmith
I'm a big fan of Patricia Highsmith, but this book was weak and dragged and didn't make a lot of sense. The cops are too dumb not to catch Ripley, who leaves a trail of clues a kindergartner could follow. There was also something so very strange about the dialogue. The original Ripley book was published years and years before this, and although Ripley is in the 80s or 90s now, he appears not to have aged, yet his dialogue and behavior is like it was in the 60s. Nobody talks any the way he talks, so it's jarring and unreal. That said, the first book was terrific, as was Strangers on a Train, and my favorite, This Sweet Sickness, a story of obsession, which I highly recommend. Kindle, Pasta dura, Pasta blanda, Casete de audio You need to have read Ripley Under Ground to have any chance of making sense of this book and the whole Ripley sequence probably needs to be read in chronological order. I have to say, though, that the quality suffers as the sequence progresses and this last book is the weakest. Ripley is stalked by an American couple who know that he is a murderer but how they know and why they are stalking him remains a bit of a mystery. I was waiting for a twist in the plot at the end and it never arrived. Actually, the number of people who know that Ripley is a murderer must be in double figures by now. Ripley himself displays his usual sociopathic tendancies but without some of the charm of the earlier books. Kindle, Pasta dura, Pasta blanda, Casete de audio I loved this book unfortunately the last in the 'Ripliad' series. Start with The Talented Mr Ripley and read all five in sequence you will not be disappointed. Patricia Highsmith is a fiendishly good thriller writer and perhaps I am a Philistine but I suspect her work has lost some traction in recent years this (if it is the case) is a travesty and cannot be allowed to continue so join me in shouting her ability from your personal rooftop. She was a prolific writer so I have to get on with it I hope I am not alone. Kindle, Pasta dura, Pasta blanda, Casete de audio This was really poor. I've read some of the other Ripley books and enjoyed the build up of tension in the first in the series. This effort meanders all over the place for no particular reason to reach a ridiculous ending. Some of the writing is also not so good reminded me a little of Jeffrey Archer in the middle, with pointless details that didn't carry the plot forward. What a shame! I think Highsmith is better than this. This one should not have been published, as far as I'm concerned. Kindle, Pasta dura, Pasta blanda, Casete de audio This is the final book in the Ripley series. The past comes back to trouble Tom in the form of a sadistic American David Pritchard. Pritchard is clearly obsessed with Tom and starts raking about in his past. The book takes Tom to Morocco with the lovely Heloise and to meet his friends Ed and Jeff in London. The Tuft/Murchison/Derwatt saga is a central part of the novel. The question is, will Tom's shady dealings and past finally catch up with him? The book kept me gripped to the end. Kindle, Pasta dura, Pasta blanda, Casete de audio
Ripley is an unmistakable descendant of Gatsby, that penniless young man without a past who will stop at nothing.Frank Rich
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 Highsmiths 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 Ripleys bizarrely paternal relationship with a troubled young runaway, whose abduction draws them into Berlins 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). Ripley Under Water