Very prolific American writer, mostly of crime novel.
Born in Fort Worth, TX in 1921. She grew up in New York, where she attended high school and obtained a B.A. at Columbia University. Her first book is Strangers on a Train (1950), followed by The Price of Salt (published under the name Carol Morgan, reissued in 1991 under the title Carol). The first book is a crime novel like most of her later production, while the second is a very beautiful homosexual love story between two women.
The Talented Mr. Ripley (1955) introduces the lovable, but murderous Mr. Ripley. Many of her subsequent novels portray Ripley, an art lover of impeccable taste, tenderly in love with his wife and quietly living in France. Mr. Ripley, Thomas Ripley to be precise, every now and then commits a murder in entirely understandable circumstances. It is very difficult not to like Ripley.
Three movies were drawn from the first Ripley book:
Ripley appears in other novels, Ripley under Ground (1970), Ripley's Game (1974), The Boy who Followed Ripley (1980) and Ripley under Water (1991). In 2002 Ripley's Game was made into a movie by Liliana Cavani with an excellent Ripley played by John Malkovich and Ray Winstone playing the lovable-but-horrible crook Reeves Minot. The story is transported to the countryside in the region of Venice.
Patricia Highsmith moved to Europe in 1963; she died in Switzerland on February 4, 1995.