Tom Ripley Books in Order: How to Read Patricia Highsmith’s Series

By Ahaqir Ishaq

The Tom Ripley books in order are The Talented Mr. Ripley (1955), Ripley Under Ground (1970), Ripley’s Game (1974), The Boy Who Followed Ripley (1980), and Ripley Under Water (1991). Patricia Highsmith’s five novels are collectively known as the Ripliad, and publication order is the best reading order for newcomers.

If you know Tom Ripley through Matt Damon’s film or Andrew Scott’s Netflix performance, there is considerably more to discover beyond his first adventure. Highsmith follows her slippery protagonist through a series of crimes, reinventions, and threats to the comfortable life he wants to preserve.

Here is where to start, what each novel covers, and why reading the series in order makes a difference. The summaries below avoid major plot twists and endings.

Tom Ripley Books in Publication Order

These are original publication years. A paperback, ebook, or television tie-in edition may display a much later release date without being a new installment.

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1. The Talented Mr. Ripley (1955)

Tom Ripley receives an opportunity that seems almost too good to be true: travel to Italy and persuade the wealthy Dickie Greenleaf to return to the United States.

What begins as an assignment becomes an obsession with Dickie’s freedom, money, and place in the world. Tom wants access to a life that has always seemed beyond his reach, and his capacity for deception makes that desire dangerous.

This is the essential starting point. It introduces the relationship between envy and reinvention that runs through the series, while establishing why Tom is such an unsettling character to follow.

The appeal lies in watching him think. Highsmith makes small social embarrassments, financial worries, and the possibility of discovery feel intensely threatening—even when the person experiencing that anxiety is creating the danger himself.

Ready to begin? Find The Talented Mr. Ripley on Amazon

2. Ripley Under Ground (1970)

The second novel finds Tom living in France, where an art-forgery operation threatens the security of his carefully constructed existence.

An American buyer’s suspicions put the scheme under pressure, and Tom must deal with questions that could expose far more than a fraudulent painting.

Where the first book explores his hunger for a different life, Ripley Under Ground examines the effort required to maintain one. The art-world setting also gives Highsmith a particularly fitting subject: authenticity. Paintings, reputations, and respectable appearances all become things that can be manufactured.

Read this second to see how the foundations established in the first novel develop into a broader criminal life.

3. Ripley’s Game (1974)

In Ripley’s Game, the danger extends beyond Tom’s own ability to deceive. The premise involves recruiting someone without a criminal record to carry out murders for money.

That shift opens up another disturbing question: how can an apparently ordinary person be persuaded to cross a line they once considered unthinkable?

This is a useful distinction for readers expecting five variations on The Talented Mr. Ripley. Highsmith changes the shape of the suspense as the series progresses. Tom can be dangerous through influence and manipulation as well as direct action.

It belongs third in your reading order, after Ripley Under Ground.

4. The Boy Who Followed Ripley (1980)

A troubled young runaway arrives at Tom’s French estate, drawing him into a story involving secrets, kidnapping, and Berlin’s criminal underworld.

The surprising element is Tom’s role as a protector. As his relationship with the young man develops, Highsmith allows a different aspect of his personality to emerge.

That does not make him easy to understand or excuse. Instead, the novel complicates the reader’s response to someone whose behavior has already challenged ordinary expectations of sympathy.

Reading it fourth gives that change in emphasis more weight. By this point, you have seen enough of Tom to recognize how strange—and revealing—his protective instincts can be.

5. Ripley Under Water (1991)

The final Ripley novel brings an inquisitive American couple into Tom’s orbit. Their interest in the disappearance of an art collector threatens to disturb the life he has worked to protect.

For readers following the entire series, the attraction is the pressure of accumulated history. Tom’s past remains something other people can investigate, interpret, and potentially use against him.

Ripley Under Water is the fifth and final novel in Highsmith’s original sequence. Save it for last, especially because its premise reaches back toward earlier events.

Do You Need to Read the Ripley Books in Order?

Reading them in publication order is strongly recommended. Individual novels have their own central conflicts, but later installments assume an existing history and can reveal developments from earlier books.

Starting at the beginning also preserves the series’ most interesting progression: Tom first wants entry into a privileged world, then faces the consequences and practical demands of keeping his place there.

There is no need for an alternative reading plan. Follow the five-book sequence above.

Which Book Is Netflix’s Ripley Based On?

Netflix’s Ripley, starring Andrew Scott, is based on The Talented Mr. Ripley, the first novel. The 1999 film starring Matt Damon also adapts that book.

If you have watched either version, begin with the novel anyway. An adaptation’s performance, visual style, and changes to the story cannot fully reproduce the experience of following Tom through Highsmith’s prose.

Then continue with Ripley Under Ground. It is the second book, even if Ripley’s Game is the sequel title you recognize first.

What Does “Ripliad” Mean?

The Ripliad is the collective name for Highsmith’s five Tom Ripley novels. It is not a sixth book.

When shopping for collected editions, check the contents carefully. A volume containing several Ripley novels does not necessarily include the entire series.

What Should You Read After the Ripley Series?

For a broader look at Highsmith’s fiction, explore our Patricia Highsmith books in order guide.

The Ripley novels offer a particularly uncomfortable kind of suspense: the reader is brought close enough to a criminal’s thinking to understand his immediate worries, while still recognizing the harm behind them. If that tension is what keeps you turning pages, Highsmith’s wider work is a natural next step.

Which Ripley novel are you planning to read first? Share your thoughts in the comments.

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