Patricia Highsmith's first novel was Strangers on a Train, published in 1950, the story of a man lured into a bizarre plot to 'swap' murders by a man he meets on a train journey. It was made into a film by Alfred Hitchcock the following year and her later novels show that she shared the film-maker's taste for dark irony blended with psychological suspense. Her most famous character, the amoral, leisure-loving sociopath Tom Ripley, made his first appearance five years after the publication of Strangers on a Train, in The Talented Mr. Ripley. Sent to Italy by wealthy businessman Herbert Greenleaf in order to persuade Greenleaf's son Dickie to leave behind a life of dolce far niente on the Mediterranean and shoulder his responsibilities in New York, Ripley finds himself seduced by the idea that he could enjoy a similar life of idle indulgence. The only obstacle is Dickie. Ripley murders the young man and assumes his identity. When one of Dickie's old friends arrives in Rome, threatening to expose Ripley's crime, he is also killed. As the Italian police begin to suspect that something is amiss, Ripley re-adopts his own identity and spins his own story of what happened to Greenleaf. In the novel’s ironic conclusion, the victim’s father and girlfriend, and the authorities, appear to accept Ripley's version of events and he is all set to prove that crime can pay. Ripley, who appeared in several later novels by Highsmith, is one of the most memorable and disconcerting characters in all of crime fiction. Completely egotistical and willing to commit any crime to maintain the way of life he believes he deserves, he none the less engages readers' sympathies. We see everything through his eyes and, such is Highsmith's skill, we find ourselves in the unsettling position of rooting for a character who is a cold-blooded, multiple murderer.

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