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Ripley's Game (Ripley #3)
382 pages
An elegant, darkly funny psychological thriller that seduces you into rooting for a charming sociopath.
What it feels like
Reading this novel feels like sipping a perfectly chilled martini while watching a slow-motion train wreck. Highsmith traps you in the mind of a wealthy, bored sociopath, making his twisted logic seem not just reasonable, but deeply seductive. The pace is steady and deliberate, building a quiet, suffocating tension as ordinary lives are casually dismantled for sport. It is a masterclass in moral ambiguity, laced with a wry, dark humor that catches you off guard. The prose is cool and detached, reflecting the protagonist's own chillingly pragmatic worldview. This is a book for readers who delight in psychological manipulation, elegant European settings, and the unsettling thrill of finding themselves entirely on the side of the villain.
- Mood
- chilly
- elegant
- quietly menacing
- morally ambiguous
- Tone
- wry
- detached
- cynical
- darkly comedic
- Pace
- steady
- Themes
- the banality of evil · moral corruption · class and privilege · the allure of transgression
- The writing
- Cool, precise, and unadorned, delivering shocking psychological insights with an unsettling casualness.
- The arc
- A slow seduction from bored complacency into a thrilling, morally corrosive descent that leaves the reader unsettlingly complicit.
- Who it's for
- Readers who enjoy elegant psychological suspense and the dark thrill of rooting for a charming, utterly unrepentant antihero.
Content notes
- murder
- psychological manipulation
- violence
- terminal illness
About the book
Living on his posh French estate with his elegant heiress wife, Tom Ripley, on the cusp of middle age, is no longer the striving comer of The Talented Mr. Ripley. Having accrued considerable wealth through a long career of crime—forgery, extortion, serial murder—Ripley still finds his appetite unquenched and longs to get back in the game.
In Ripley's Game, first published in 1974, Patricia Highsmith's classic chameleon relishes the opportunity to simultaneously repay an insult and help a friend commit a crime—and escape the doldrums of his idyllic retirement. This third novel in Highsmith's series is one of her most psychologically nuanced—particularly memorable for its dark, absurd humor—and was hailed by critics for its ability to manipulate the tropes of the genre. With the creation of Ripley, one of literature's most seductive sociopaths, Highsmith anticipated the likes of Norman Bates and Hannibal Lecter years before their appearance.
Description from Open Library.
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