Ripley Under Ground (And Ripley's Game)

Book Name : Ripley Under Ground (And Ripley's Game)
Author : Patricia Highsmith

What is it about : Our famous "amateur" villain hatched another unlikely murderous plot. This time Tom Ripley would commit the murder in his house in France ! All the hoo-ha was done to save the Derwatt painting franchise which was again masterminded by our Tom and carried out by incompetent accomplices in London. The franchise was essentially a scam of selling forged paintings by a non-existent recluse artist hiding out in a village in Mexico - yeh, apparently the paintings sold like hot cakes ... All was going well until an American collector spotted a "cobalt blue" which should not have been there in one of the paintings and suspected foul play, Tom finished him off after a drunken dinner.

Some thoughts after having read the book : The author wrote the book in 1970 where forensics were primitive and the minds of the detectives were slow. No, no Poirot, Miss Marple or Detective Columbo anywhere remotely in sight to make Tom a little nervous. Reading the book in 2014 and making comments would be un-fair as we are now accustomed to books running at much faster pace, CSI on TV and lightning speed Internet to crawl out any dirt from anyone - Tom just would not survive in these modern times.

Would I recommend this book to you : You might think I have a rather negative view on the book, but on the contrary, I enjoyed the book immensely for sheer class and elegance. It was a joy to learn that Tom was living a luxurious idle life (big house, fast cars, perfect servant, painting the occasional portrait of his wife, popping down the French village to buy some flowers, his maid cooking up delicious dinners and such like). With the exception of a few frustrating scenes which amply demonstrated how amateur Tom was behaving and even more amateur the local police was going about their work, the book was a joy to read and the pages just turned effortlessly.

Ripley's Game had a similar read and feel, so I would not elaborate further, except that Ripley's Game was equally amusing and readable.