Read by Michael Hayden Six cassettes / approx. 10 hours The chilling crime fiction classic--now a major motion picture from Paramount, starring Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow, Cate Blanchett, and Jude Law, written and directed by Anthony Minghella ( The English Patient ), and produced by Sydney Pollack. In Tom Ripley, Patricia Highsmith created the perfect criminal.  In The Talented Mr. Ripley , circumstances and opportunities transform him from a petty perpetrator of fraud into a suave, agreeable, and totally amoral artist of crime, who will stop at nothing--certainly not a single murder--to get what he desires. "[Highsmith] has created a world of her own--a world claustrophobic and irrational which we enter each time with a sense of personal danger." --Graham Greene "Patricia Highsmith's novels are peerlessly disturing . . . bad dreams that keep us thrashing for the rest of the night, with the sense that an awful possibility has been articulated only to be left unresolved." -- The New Yorker "One of our greatest modernist writers." --Gore Vidal From the Trade Paperback edition. ael Hayden Six cassettes / approx. 10 hours The chilling crime fiction classic--now a major motion picture from Paramount, starring Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow, Cate Blanchett, and Jude Law, written and directed by Anthony Minghella ( The English Patient ), and produced by Sydney Pollack. In Tom Ripley, Patricia Highsmith created the perfect criminal.  In The Talented Mr. Ripley , circumstances and opportunities transform him from a petty perpetrator of fraud into a suave, agreeable, and totally amoral artist of crime, who will stop at nothing--certainly not a single murder--to get what he desires. ael Hayden Six cassettes / approx. 10 hours The chilling crime fiction classic--now a major motion picture from Paramount, starring Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow, Cate Blanchett, and Jude Law, written and directed by Anthony Minghella ( The English Patient ), and produced by Sydney Pollack. In Tom Ripley, Patricia Highsmith created the perfect criminal.  In The Talented Mr. Ripley , circumstances and opportunities transform him from a petty perpetrator of fraud into a suave, agreeable, and totally amoral artist of crime, who will stop at nothing--certainly not a single murder--to get what he desires. Patricia Highsmith spent much of her life in England, France, and Switzerland.  She died in 1955. Tom glanced behind him and saw the man coming out of the Green Cage, heading his way. Tom walked faster. There was no doubt the man was after him. Tom had noticed him five minutes ago, eyeing him carefully from a table, as if he weren't quite sure, but almost. He had looked sure enough for Tom to down his drink in a hurry, pay and get out. At the corner Tom leaned forward and trotted across Fifth Avenue. There was Raoul's. Should he take a chance and go in for another drink? Tempt fate and all that? Or should he beat it over to Park Avenue and try losing him in a few dark doorways? He went into Raoul's. Automatically, as he strolled to an empty space at the bar, he looked around to see if there was anyone he knew. There was the big man with red hair, whose name he always forgot, sitting at a table with a blonde girl. The red-haired man waved a hand, and Tom's hand went up limply in response. He slid one leg over a stool and faced the door challengingly, yet with a flagrant casualness. 'Gin and tonic, please,' he said to the barman. Was this the kind of man they would send after him? Was he, wasn't he, was he? He didn't look like a policeman or a detective at all. He looked like a businessman, somebody's father, well-dressed, well-fed, greying at the temples an air of uncertainty about him. Was that the kind they sent on a job like this, maybe to start chatting with you in a bar, and then bang! -- the hand on the shoulder, the other hand displaying a policeman's badge. Torn Ripley, you're under arrest. Tom watched the door. Here he came. The man looked around, saw him and immediately looked away. He removed his straw hat, and took a place around the curve of the bar. My God, what did he want? He certainly wasn't a pervert, Tom thought for the second time, though now his tortured brain groped and produced the actual word, as if the word could protect him, because he would rather the man be a pervert than a policeman. To a pervert, he could simply say, 'No, thank you,' and smile and walk away. Tom slid back on the stool, bracing himself. Tom saw the man make a gesture of postponement to the barman, and come around the bar towards him. Here it was! Tom stared at him, paralysed. They couldn't give you more than ten years, Tom thought. Maybe fifteen, but with good conduct--In the instant the man's lips parted to speak, Tom had a pang of desperate, agonized regret. 'Pardon me, are you Tom Ripley?' 'Yes.' 'My name is Herbert Greenleaf. Richard Greenleaf's father.' The expression on his face was more confusing to Tom than if he