Ripley Under Ground

Highsmith, Patricia; Lambert, Nigel

ISBN 10: 1850898537 ISBN 13: 9781850898535

Publisher: Isis Audio Books, 1991

Synopsis

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).

About this title

Reviews

American-born Tom Ripley has lived in the suburbs of Paris for some fifteen years, supported by income from not-so-honestly-gotten gains. An impending scandal threatens his comfortable existence, and Tom must act carefully and quickly. Novelist Highsmith deftly develops the story to elicit our sympathy for the crook, and we oblige. Briton Nigel Lambert reads the story with mounting excitement, immediately catching the reader in the suspense. Accents of the American characters have an unnatural, Midwestern flatness, but aside from this shortcoming, the story is a good choice for recording, and the production is well-done. N.B.H. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine

Edition details

• Publisher: Isis Audio Books
• Publication date: 1991
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1850898537
• ISBN 13: 9781850898535
• Binding: Audio Cassette
• Number of pages: 8