Ripley

Tom Ripley is struggling to stay one step ahead of his creditors and the law when an unexpected acquaintance offers him the chance to start over. Ripley wants money, success, and the good life, and he's willing to kill for it. When his newfound happiness is threatened, his response is as swift as it is shocking.

Tom Ripley detests murder - unless it is absolutely necessary. If possible he prefers someone else to do the dirty work; in this case, a victim of a fatal disease, with no criminal record, who will murder for a reward, in order to provide for his young widow and child.

When a troubled young runaway arrives on Tom Ripley's French estate, he is drawn into a world he thought he'd left behind: a seedy underworld involving kidnapping plots, lies and deception. Ripley becomes the boy's protector as friendship develops between the young man with a guilty conscience and the older one with no conscience at all.

Tom Ripley is a man who is fastidious about everything except murder, but he is disturbed that the Pritchards, a new American couple in the village, seem to be well informed about his past, and flaunt the knowledge. He is determined that these intruders will muddy still waters at their peril..