The Talented Mr Ripley by Patricia Highsmith

The Talented Mr. Ripley is a psychological thriller novel by Patricia Highsmith. This novel first introduced the character of Tom Ripley, who would return in the novels Ripley Under Ground, Ripley's Game, The Boy Who Followed Ripley and Ripley Under Water, known collectively as the Ripliad.

A dark reworking of Henry James's "The Ambassadors, The Talented Mr. Ripley"--immortalized in the 1998 film--is an unforgettable introduction to this debonair confidence man, whose talent for self-invention and calculated murder is chronicled in four subsequent novels.