Ripley Under Water (1991)

Last of the Ripleyaid. He's so bad! ( )

The tables are turned somewhat in this 5th and final installment of the life and times of our boy Tom Ripley. Two new neighbors, an American and his wife, have made Tom and his, umm, shall we say, "checkered" past their pet project. Prank phone calls, cryptic and vaguely menacing confrontations on the street, and outright stalking cause Tom more than a little concern, although he's very careful about maintaining his unruffled exterior, and in keeping Heloise, his trés chic wife, ignorant about his past activities.

One of the more amusing things about Ripley is his sense of decorum. One gets the feeling that he dislikes these people not so much because they threaten his comfortable existence, but because they are crude and boorish and unrefined. They lack class, and that is a besetting sin in M'sieur Ripley's world.

As an aside, the title of this book worried me. In the previous novel, The Boy Who Followed Ripley, Tom mused absent-mindedly that his end would involve water. And, to a certain degree, I guess it does.

Enjoyable. ( )

Tom Ripley is perhaps my favorite psychopath. Even though he is frighteningly amoral, I still find myself somehow rooting for him as he murders his “best friend”, engages in art forgery (and commits murder to cover it up), plays with the lives of others (and murders some of them of course) simply because he feels he was snubbed, indulges in a lot of sexually ambiguous behavior, and generally plays a game of cat-and-mouse with anyone who crosses his path. ( )

Good. ( )

Several years after Murchinson's death, an American couple moves to Ripley;s small village and soon Tom receives harassing calls from soneone whol calls himself "Greenleaf" , the name of someone Tom killed some years ago. The newcomver, Prithcard, also starts dredging rivers and canals in the area to find Murchinson's bones (another of Tom's victims. The climax is unexpected and again leaves Tom off the hook. ( )