Ripley Under Ground
Ratings14
Average rating3.2
15
Ratings14
Average rating3.2
It's been six years since Ripley murdered Dickie Greenleaf and inherited his money. Now, in Ripley Under Ground (1970), he lives in a beautiful French villa, surrounded by a world-class art collection and married to a pharmaceutical heiress. All seems serene in Ripley's world until a phone call from London shatters his peace. An art forgery scheme he set up a few years ago is threatening to unravel: a nosy American is asking questions and Ripley must go to London to put a stop to it. In this second Ripley novel, Patricia Highsmith offers a mesmerizing and disturbing tale in which Ripley will stop at nothing to preserve his tangle of lies.
Series
5 primary booksRipley is a 5-book series with 5 primary works first released in 1955 with contributions by Patricia Highsmith and Jordi Beltrán.
Reviews with the most likes.
The recent RIPLEY TV series got a mixed response. Despite some finding it slow and boring, all style over substance, I loved it, and having fairly recently read the book, immediately reached for the sequel. In RIPLEY UNDER GROUND the author gives us what is essentially a French farce but recounted in calm, conversational language. From this dichotomy of absurd events and mundane telling the psychopathy of Ripley (now a serial killer) emerges. Cleverly done, and a marvellous character! Unfortunately, the plot is a mess. Its crescendos come in the wrong places and its lulls are frequently too long. A farce requires a rapid pace and a wild escalation. Those elements are not well handled here, and the cliff-hanger ending doesn't work at all. Disappointing.
First one was better. And Patricia Highsmith was, to quote my mother, “someone who gives lesbians a bad name”. Take of that what you will
