Thomas "Tom" Ripley is a fictional character in a series of crime novels by Patricia Highsmith, as well as several film adaptations. Highsmith introduced the Ripley character in The Talented Mr. Ripley (1955) as a young man making a meager living as a con artist. The novel also supplies him with a back story: Orphaned at age five, he was raised in Boston by his aunt Dottie, a cold, stingy woman who mocked him as a "sissy". As a teenager, he attempted unsuccessfully to run away from his aunt's home to New York City before finally moving there at age 20. In The Talented Mr. Ripley, he is paid to go to Italy by Herbert Greenleaf, a shipbuilding magnate, to convince his son Dickie (a half-remembered acquaintance) to return to New York and join the family business. Ripley befriends the younger Greenleaf and falls in love with the rich young man's indulgent, carefree lifestyle; he also becomes obsessed with Greenleaf himself. He eventually murders Greenleaf after the playboy tires of him and...