Ripley's Game

Rating:
Summary: A Morality Play with a Double Entendre Title
Review: If you have not yet read The Talented Mr. Ripley and Ripley Under Ground (the weakest of the three first books in the series), I strongly suggest that you pursue those books before Ripley's Game. There's a continuity of character development that you will miss otherwise.

The premise for Ripley's Game is the most interesting of the first three books in a series: How will a dying man look at morality when he knows his days are numbered? Ripley's Game has a second advantage over The Talented Mr. Ripley and Ripley Under Ground -- there are no plot devices where Ripley fools the same person over and over again with alternate disguises. Another advantage over Ripley Under Ground is that Ms. Highsmith has a new character who can be totally developed in his many complex facets, much as Tom Ripley was so brilliantly in The Talented Mr. Ripley.

The title is particularly clever. In one meaning, it describes one aspect of the plot. Ripley has become interested in how an innocent man might be persuaded through careful psychological nudges to perform an anonymous murder. In the other meaning, Ripley becomes the hunted, the game that killers seek out -- as in famous short story, The Most Dangerous Game. There's a possible third meaning as well -- that Ripley is ready to tangle with a tough situation.

As the book opens, Tom Ripley's criminal friend Reeves has come up with an implausible idea -- encourage the Italian mafia to run itself out of Hamburg by starting a war between rival families. To do this, Reeves needs an untraceable, innocent-looking killer who will quickly disappear. Reeves spots the possible targets, but cannot think of anyone to do the killings. Although Ripley has nothing at stake, the problem intrigues Tom. He remembers a local owner of a framing shop, Jonathan Trevanny, who has an advanced case of incurable leukemia. How might making the man afraid of dying sooner affect his willingness to kill? The story proceeds from there with many twists and turns that are more realistic than in The Talented Mr. Ripley or Ripley Under Ground.

Before the book is over, you learn a lot about how people create their own situational morality. You will find yourself surprised by the reactions of Ripley, Trevanny and Trevanny's wife. It makes for very interesting reading. I especially enjoyed seeing Ms. Highsmith go back to do more with developing new dimensions of Ripley's character.

The book's main problem with the book is that it usually moves at the wrong pace. The leisurely, untroubled sections are developed at about the same pace as the dangerous action sections are. As a result, the book feels like Beethoven's Ninth Symphony is being played at the exact same average tempo throughout. The contrasts don't work as well with such an approach. In addition, the leisurely parts are too fast and the action parts are too slow.

The Boy Who Followed Ripley comes next in the series.

After you finish this book, take time to honestly think about what you would do if you had been Trevanny. It makes for a series of fascinating speculations to consider.

Rating:
Summary: For fans of American Friend
Review: If you liked the Wim Wenders film 'American Friend', then this is the original! All the other books will fall into place after this.

Rating:
Summary: An excellent novel in many respects
Review: In her book about plotting and writing thrillers, Patricia Highsmith said that European critics and publishers think of her books as novels, not merely as thrillers. After reading "Ripley's Game", one can certainly sympathize with the European point of view. "Ripley's Game" is an excellent thriller and an excellent novel.

I suspect that this book finds Tom Ripley in mid career. He's married and living on a French estate thanks to the generosity of a father-in-law who despises him. A series of chance events provide Ripley with the opportunity to simultaneously repay an insult and to help a friend commit a crime. The ensuing action comprises one of Patricia Highsmith's most interesting stories.

Ripley engineers events so that the man who insulted him ends up committing the crime for his friend. But a sense of guilt and an adventurous spirit compel Ripley to come to the man's assistance. Since crimes never succeed in the exact manner intended, Ripley and company soon find themselves in a desperate situation that requires a lot of maneuvering.

By the end of the story, at least two people with conventional mores wind up behaving in a manner that contradicts their ethics. While Ripley's point of view is a little more subdued than usual, he still displays a few humorous touches. In the scene where he decides that he must garrote a Mafia leader, for example, he becomes excited at the thought of "his first Mafia effort". Later when he must explain the presence of two dead Mafia hitmen to a frightened housewife, he becomes the country gentlemen informing her that these people are vermin whose death is regrettable but who deserved their fate.

Patricia Highsmith usually writes from the point of view of a single protagonist, and since all speech and action is conveyed through that person, we quickly see things from his or her point of view. In this novel, however, the action is disseminated through two points of view, Ripley's and that of his puppet/accomplice. The result is both interesting and unsettling. On the one hand, we really get a sense of what other people think of Tom Ripley, and how much of his criminal life is apparent to them. On the other hand, it's a strange change to observe Ripley from the outside instead of seeing the action from his point of view.

"Ripley's Game" examines the forces that motivate a normally law abiding citizen to commit a crime. In the process it causes us to question how circumstantial our own morality and legal obedience may actually be.

Rating:
Summary: An excellent novel in many respects
Review: In her book about plotting and writing thrillers, Patricia Highsmith said that European critics and publishers think of her books as novels, not merely as thrillers. After reading "Ripley's Game", one can certainly sympathize with the European point of view. "Ripley's Game" is an excellent thriller and an excellent novel.

I suspect that this book finds Tom Ripley in mid career. He's married and living on a French estate thanks to the generosity of a father-in-law who despises him. A series of chance events provide Ripley with the opportunity to simultaneously repay an insult and to help a friend commit a crime. The ensuing action comprises one of Patricia Highsmith's most interesting stories.

Ripley engineers events so that the man who insulted him ends up committing the crime for his friend. But a sense of guilt and an adventurous spirit compel Ripley to come to the man's assistance. Since crimes never succeed in the exact manner intended, Ripley and company soon find themselves in a desperate situation that requires a lot of maneuvering.

By the end of the story, at least two people with conventional mores wind up behaving in a manner that contradicts their ethics. While Ripley's point of view is a little more subdued than usual, he still displays a few humorous touches. In the scene where he decides that he must garrote a Mafia leader, for example, he becomes excited at the thought of "his first Mafia effort". Later when he must explain the presence of two dead Mafia hitmen to a frightened housewife, he becomes the country gentlemen informing her that these people are vermin whose death is regrettable but who deserved their fate.

Patricia Highsmith usually writes from the point of view of a single protagonist, and since all speech and action is conveyed through that person, we quickly see things from his or her point of view. In this novel, however, the action is disseminated through two points of view, Ripley's and that of his puppet/accomplice. The result is both interesting and unsettling. On the one hand, we really get a sense of what other people think of Tom Ripley, and how much of his criminal life is apparent to them. On the other hand, it's a strange change to observe Ripley from the outside instead of seeing the action from his point of view.

"Ripley's Game" examines the forces that motivate a normally law abiding citizen to commit a crime. In the process it causes us to question how circumstantial our own morality and legal obedience may actually be.

Rating:
Summary: Another Great Ripley Novel
Review: In the third Ripley novel, we see exactly how cold and sinister Tom Ripley can be, and how casual his attitude is toward murder. Ripley perceives that he has been slighted at a birthday party, and this sets off an unimaginable chain of events: When a friend of Ripley's asks for help in committing a murder, Ripley remembers a man who had spoken to him somewhat coldly at a party, and suggests the friend ask this man to help. When Ripley realizes what he has done to the man, we get a glimpse of his loyal, caring side.

This book becomes more about Jonathan, the protagonist, and less about Ripley, who can't quite be called the antagonist. Ripley isn't as present as in the other novels, but his influence is on every page.

Rating:
Summary: Not all THAT good!
Review: Just because you loved "The Talented Mr. Ripley" (like I did) don't expect this book to be the same (or any one of the other follow-ups to Ripley). They're OK mystery novels but none of them reaches the excitement and beauty of "The Talented...". Still overall it's an OK mystery novel and you just might like it.

Rating:
Summary: Another successful escapade with Ripley
Review: Ms. Highsmith again successfully takes us on one of Thomas Ripleys adventures that gets him mixed up with the Mafia. A formidable opponent I would say. His warped thinking doesn't seem so warped as you follow his logic and life. I again rooted for him to come out unscathed although a loss of a personal friend truly touches his heart. Extremely interesting and adventursome. Will Mr. Ripleys life ever calm down? He sure has a knack for delving in the criminal element. Murder again has a role in this book and vengance is pointed at him. Another success, Thank you Ms. Highsmith.

Rating:
Summary: Marvellous
Review: Patricia Highsmith shows very well the ability and influence of human's inner man. It is an excellent entertainment where you will find a lot of aspects of humans being and thinking under certain circumstances. Also action is guaranteed by a lot of brutal scenes and nervous feelings. It's a book I have to value in a high way, because it made me feel and fever with the story, some scenes made upset me and that's enough to recommend to anyone that marvellous book.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting as usual...
Review: Patricia Highsmith's character Tom Ripley is one of the most interesting to follow. His growth from one novel to the next is fascinating and every time you think he's going one way, he goes another.
In this novel, Ripley tackles the Mafia, with intersting results. He crosses the Mafia through Jonathan, a man who had spited him, and Tom pays back as only Tom (psychopath that he is) can.
The novel is intersting, full of detail and exquisitely crafted. It is also a novel for the patient, as the pace, and the setting, is completely European.
Reccommended.

Rating:
Summary: Ripley's treacherous game
Review: Reeves Minot, an old acquaintance of Tom Ripley's, is dabbling in the illegal gambling world of Hamburg and he wants Tom to get rid of one or two Mafia people who bother him. But because Tom has been enjoying a peaceful and secure existence in his house in Villeperce since the Derwatt affair, he is not prepared to do the job himself. Instead he suggests - more as a practical joke than anything serious because the man had been nasty to him once at a party - a person called Jonathan Trevanny to do the two killings. Jonathan is a thirty-five year old, mild mannered picture framer in Fontainebleau suffering from leukaemia and he agrees to do the job because of the comfort the 90 000 Dollars will bring to his wife Simone and small boy George. But killing Salvatore Bianca and Vito Marcangelo is going to have consequences that not even a Tom Ripley could have foreseen. "The Mafia never forgets" indeed!...
A very entertaining Ripley mystery in Patricia Highsmith's famous style in which one can feel danger and menace lurking permanently in familiar surroundings.