Ripley Under Ground
Ratings21
Average rating3.3
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
Series
5 primary books#2 in Ripley
Ripley is a 5-book series with 5 primary works first released in 1955 with contributions by Patricia Highsmith.
Reviews
Popular Reviews
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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.
If this many people showed up at my house with little to no notice, I might also be homicidal
