Patricia Highsmith was an American novelist and short story writer widely known for her psychological thrillers, including her series of five novels featuring the character Tom Ripley. She wrote 22 novels and numerous short stories in a career spanning nearly five decades, and her work has led to more than two dozen film adaptations. Her writing was influenced by existentialist literature, and questioned notions of identity and popular morality. She was dubbed "the poet of apprehension" by novelist Graham Greene.
Ripley's Game (1974) is a psychological thriller by Patricia Highsmith, the third in her series about the con artist and murderer Tom Ripley.
The American Friend is a 1977 neo-noir film written and directed by Wim Wenders, adapted from the 1974 novel Ripley's Game by Patricia Highsmith. It stars Dennis Hopper as career-criminal Tom Ripley and Bruno Ganz as Jonathan Zimmermann, a terminally ill picture framer whom Ripley coaxes into becoming an assassin. The film uses an unusual "natural" language concept: Zimmermann speaks German with his family and his doctor, but English with Ripley and while visiting Paris.
The Talented Mr. Ripley is a 1999 American psychological thriller film written and directed by Anthony Minghella, based on Patricia Highsmith's 1955 novel. Set in the 1950s, it stars Matt Damon as Tom Ripley, a con artist who is sent from New York City to Italy to convince Dickie Greenleaf, a rich and spoiled playboy, to return home – however, after failing, Ripley takes extreme measures. Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, Cate Blanchett, and Philip Seymour Hoffman also appear in supporting roles. This film was released forty years after the adaptation that had been made in 1960, Purple Noon by René Clément with Alain Delon, Maurice Ronet and Marie Laforêt.
Tom Ripley is a fictional character in the Ripley series of crime novels by American novelist Patricia Highsmith, as well as several film adaptations. He is a psychopathic career criminal, con artist, and serial killer. The five novels in which he appears—The Talented Mr. Ripley, Ripley Under Ground, Ripley's Game, The Boy Who Followed Ripley, and Ripley Under Water—were published between 1955 and 1991.
George Joseph Smith was an English serial killer and bigamist who was convicted and subsequently hanged for the murders of three women in 1915. The case became known as the Brides in the Bath Murders. As well as being widely reported in the media, it was significant in the history of forensic pathology and detection. It was also one of the first cases in which striking similarities between connected crimes were used to prove guilt, a technique used in subsequent prosecutions.
Ripley Under Ground is a psychological thriller by Patricia Highsmith, the second novel in her Ripliad series. It was published in June 1970.
Purple Noon is a 1960 crime thriller film starring Alain Delon, alongside Marie Laforêt and Maurice Ronet; Romy Schneider, Delon's girlfriend at the time, makes a brief cameo appearance in the film. The film follows Tom Ripley, a young American sent to Italy to convince wealthy playboy Philippe Greenleaf to return home. As Tom becomes obsessed with Philippe's luxurious lifestyle, he devises a plan that will allow him to take over Philippe's life.
This Sweet Sickness (1960) is a psychological thriller novel by Patricia Highsmith, about a man who is obsessed with a woman who has rejected his advances. It is a "painful novel about obsessive imaginary love".
The Price of Salt is a 1952 romance novel by Patricia Highsmith, first published under the pseudonym "Claire Morgan." Highsmith—known as a suspense writer based on her psychological thriller Strangers on a Train—used an alias as she did not want to be tagged as "a lesbian-book writer", and she also used her own life references for characters and occurrences in the story.
The Boy Who Followed Ripley is a 1980 psychological thriller novel by Patricia Highsmith, the fourth in her series about career criminal Tom Ripley. In this book, Ripley continues living quietly on his French estate, Belle Ombre, only obliquely involved in criminal activity. His idyll is shaken when he meets a teenaged boy who is hiding from the police.
Deep Water is a psychological thriller by Patricia Highsmith first published in 1957 by Harper & Brothers. It is Highsmith's fifth published novel. The working title was originally The Dog in the Manger. It was brought back into print in the United States in 2003 by W. W. Norton & Company.
Strangers on a Train (1950) is a psychological thriller novel by Patricia Highsmith about two men whose lives become entangled after one of them proposes they "trade" murders.
The Talented Mr. Ripley is a 1955 psychological thriller novel by Patricia Highsmith. The novel introduced the character of con man Tom Ripley, whom Highsmith wrote about in four subsequent books. Its numerous film and television adaptations include Purple Noon (1960), starring Alain Delon, The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), starring Matt Damon, and the 2024 series Ripley, starring Andrew Scott.
The Cry of the Owl is a psychological thriller novel by Patricia Highsmith, the eighth of her 22 novels. It was first published in the US in 1962 by Harper & Row and in the UK by Heinemann the following year. It explores, in the phrase of critic Brigid Brophy, "the psychology of the self-selected victim".
Theodora Roosevelt Keogh O'Toole Rauchfuss was an American novelist writing under her first married name, Theodora Keogh, in the 1950s and 1960s.
Ripley Under Ground is a 2005 German-British-French crime thriller film directed by Roger Spottiswoode and based on the 1970 second novel in Patricia Highsmith's Tom Ripley series. It stars Barry Pepper as Ripley and features Willem Dafoe, Alan Cumming, and Tom Wilkinson in supporting roles.
Edith's Diary (1977) is a psychological thriller novel by Patricia Highsmith, the seventeenth of her 22 novels. It was first published in the UK by Heinemann. One critic described it as "a relentless dissection of an unexceptional life that burns itself out from a lack of love and happiness".
Patricia Schartle Myrer (1923–2010) was an editor, literary agent and publishing executive based in New York City. She was editor-in-chief of Appleton-Century-Crofts publishing. She eventually became president of McIntosh & Otis literary agency. She married novelist Anton Myrer in 1970. Some of the authors she represented were Mary Higgins Clark, Patricia Highsmith and Eleanor Hibbert. She retired in 1984 and died in 2010.
List of works by or about Patricia Highsmith, American novelist.
