RipleyBy: Patricia Highsmith Charm is the perfect disguise Tom Ripley is drifting through life in 1950s New York, a young man with quick wits, no prospects and a talent for imitation. When hes sent to Italy to persuade a wealthy heir, Dickie Greenleaf, to return home, the trip feels like deliverance: sunlit villas, boats on the bay, and friendship with the kind of people who barely notice men like him. But fascination becomes fixation. As Tom sinks further