The Boy Who Followed Ripley

infobox Book |
name = The Boy Who Followed Ripley
title_orig =
translator =


image_caption = Recent paperback edition cover
author = Patricia Highsmith
cover_artist =
country = United States
language = English
series = Ripliad
genre = Mystery novel
publisher = Heinemann (UK) & Lippincott & Crowell (USA)
release_date = April 1980
media_type = Print (Hardback & Paperback)
pages = 288 pp (first edition, hardback)
isbn = ISBN 0-434-33520-7 (first edition, hardback)
preceded_by = Ripley's Game
followed_by = Ripley Under Water

The Boy Who Followed Ripley is the fourth book of Patricia Highsmith's series (known among critics and fans as the "Ripliad") revolving around career criminal Tom Ripley. In this book, Ripley continues living quietly in his French estate, Belle Ombre, only obliquely involved in criminal activity. His idyll is shaken when he meets a teenaged boy hiding from the police.

Plot summary

An American 16-year-old calling himself Billy approaches Ripley in the village, asking for a job. Ripley agrees to give him a small amount of gardening work and puts him up in the guest room, but believes that he recognizes the youth from a newspaper. Further investigation reveals that 'Billy' is actually Frank Pierson, the son of a recently deceased American tycoon, who has fled the country.

Ripley quickly establishes from Frank that he actually committed patricide, and his interest in the boy increases, perhaps recognizing a kindred spirit. He also discovers that Frank deliberately sought Ripley out for advice after learning of his shady reputation. Ripley commissions a false passport for Frank, and they travel to Germany, ending up in West Berlin, where they stay with a friend of Ripley's erstwhile partner in crime, Reeves Minot.

In West Berlin, Frank is kidnapped. Ripley communicates with the Pierson family, and a private detective the family has sent to Paris. The Piersons wire the ransom to Berlin, and Ripley takes it to the appointed drop-off point, where he spontaneously kills one of the kidnappers. The rest flee. Ripley returns with the money and arranges another drop-off, this time at a gay bar, which he infiltrates by dressing in drag. He identifies the kidnappers, who again leave empty-handed, and follows them back to the flat where they are keeping the boy, whom he single-handedly rescues.

Ripley returns the money to the Pierson family, encourages Frank to return to his family in New England, and accompanies him. Despite Ripley's coaching and reassurances, Frank is overwhelmed by guilt, as well as his unrequited love for a young girl. He first attempts, and then succeeds, in throwing himself over the cliff from which he pushed his wheelchair-bound father. Shaken and, much to his own surprise, saddened by Frank's death, Ripley returns to Belle Ombre.

Major themes

Highsmith captures the oppressive atmosphere of Cold War Germany, and the hedonism of West Berlin, and in particular the gay bar scene. Ripley tolerates — and sympathizes with — the gay characters he encounters, in contrast to the self-loathing he felt due to his latent attraction to Dickie Greenleaf in "The Talented Mr Ripley". It is also suggested that his interest in Frank is more than paternal, though this is never explicitly stated. Ripley's efforts in protecting Frank, and that stealing the ransom money does not even occur to him, indicate a form of emotionless compassion lacking in the character's behaviour in earlier books.