The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith

 

Let's start at the beginning.

At some point during the month of March, while looking for books to read, I came upon the name of Patricia Highsmith. She is best remembered for her 1950 psychological thriller, Strangers on a Train, which was adapted to film in 1951 by director Alfred Hitchcock. As I mentioned in an earlier blog post, I located the Hitchcock film online and re-watched the movie and began reading the e-book.

For those familiar with the film, note that Hitchcock made several changes to the story. Never the less, I became an immediate fan of Highsmith, downloading everything she had written.

I went on to read Highsmith's Deep Water in April and so far this month, I've read two additional e-books -The Blunderer and The Talented Mr. Ripley. It was after I had put The Talented Mr. Ripley into the queue for this month that I came upon The 9 Books you Must Read in 2023 of which The Talented Mr. Ripley is one. As I am a fan of Highsmith, I knew I'd enjoy that particular book, although frankly I wasn't sure that it belonged on a list of the 9 books that really had to be read before the year was out.

That was, of course, before I'd actually read the book. Now that I've finished reading it, I'd have to say that it may be the best book I've read so far this year. Highsmith was a master of the psychological thriller; each of the four books written by her, that I've read so far, have not failed to surprise me at every turn.

Highsmith wrote five books within the , so-called "Ripliad". Having finished the first, I'm naturally looking forward to finishing the "Ripliad". However, I began with the idea to read Highsmith's novels in pretty much the order that they were written. The second in the Ripley series, Ripley Under Ground, was published 15 years after the first one. I'd have to skip over eight of her books - breaking the order. I'm going to stick to my original plan and read her 1958 novel, A Game for the Living next (even though Highsmith herself said "This is my worst book, so please think twice before you buy it").