Now part of American film and literary lore, Tom Ripley, a bisexual psychopath and art forger who murders without remorse when his comforts are threatened (New York Times Book Review), was Patricia Highsmiths favorite creation. In The Boy Who Followed Ripley (1980), Highsmith explores Ripleys bizarrely paternal relationship with a troubled young runaway, whose abduction draws them into Berlins seamy underworld. More than any other American literary character, Ripley provides a lens to peer into the sinister machinations of human behavior (John Freeman, Pittsburgh Gazette).