‘Ripley Under Ground’ by Patricia Highsmith

My Review (3 stars out of 5)

A team of art fraudsters at the Buckmaster Gallery in London plan an exhibition of work by Derwatt – a dead artist whose works they’ve been forging. Tom Ripley’s part in the scam requires him to help perpetuate the myth. Travelling to England from his home in France, Ripley masquerades as Derwatt in an attempt to fool the press and an American collector.

Set a few years after the second book in the Tom Ripley series (The Talented Mr Ripley) we find our hero living the high life in France with his wife. His part in an art fraud drags Ripley into dealing with an American collector who doesn’t quite believe all the hype about Derwatt and is keen to probe Ripley on his own collection by the artist. Inviting the man to his home to view the paintings, and finding the doubting fan isn’t easily taken in, Ripley is forced to take drastic measures. Dealing with a visiting member of the Greenleaf family as well as an English detective and the neurotic forger Bernard, keeping a lid on the deception leads to a mad chase from one hotel to another, in an effort to conceal the truth. And if that means killing a few people in the process, so be it.

Following on from the first book, this one has a good story, but the quality is poor. It’s as if Highsmith couldn’t be bothered to make a good job of it, or simply churned out a first draft and left it at that. Amid clunky dialogue and lazy writing, it’s all a bit disappointing. Having said that, I’ll persevere with the next book in the series, just in case things improve.  

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