Patricia Highsmith wrote The Talented Mr. Ripley in in 1955. She based it loosely on Henry James’s The Ambassadors (which I now have to add to my to-read list). The lead character, Tom Ripley, proved so popular, that she brought him back for four more novels. When the reader first meets Tom he is living close to the bone in New York City, subsisting on his “friends,” or running various schemes, including mail fraud. But Tom isn’t really great at his schemes, and he doesn’t like […]