Ripley Under Water

**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 Highsmith’s 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 Ripley’s bizarrely paternal relationship with a troubled young runaway, whose abduction draws them into Berlin’s 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* ).