Ripley Under Water by Patricia Highsmith****

Reading dates: 04 February – 02 March 2017

Although still not the best in the series, Ripley Under Water is better conceived than the previous book. Ripley was bound to get a stalker at some point so the main thread of the story makes sense. I am still not sure about the quality of the plot but the simplicity of the resolution is coherent in terms of Highsmith’s universe. Ripley is lucky, though, too lucky, but this is a novel and I will forgive that. Like most of the story lines, it all keeps coming back to book 2 and sometimes I wonder if Ripley ever has a thought for Jonathan (from book 3) or the boy who followed him (from book 4). It seems odd these characters are never mentioned again. Is Ripley so cold hearted, so self-centred, so focused on his own protection? In this novel, we travel to Tangiers and we still get plenty of the Paris suburbs. Place and anxiety are the two best attributes of the series, I think.