Ripley Under Water

infobox Book |
name = Ripley Under Water
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 = Bloomsbury ] (UK) & Alfred A. Knopf (USA)
release_date = 3 October 1991
media_type = Print (hardback, paperback)
pages = 256 pp (first edition, hardback)
isbn = ISBN 0-7475-1004-0 (first edition, hardback)
preceded_by = The Boy Who Followed Ripley
followed_by =

"Ripley Under Water" is the final in Patricia Highsmith's series of five books known as the "Ripliad".

Plot summary

Now living in the French countryside with his wife, Heloise, Tom Ripley is bothered by an obnoxious American couple who have rented a house nearby and who seem bent on exploring incidents in Ripley's past. With no apparent personal motive, David Pritchard and his wife Janice refer to an American businessman and art collector named Murchison, who mysteriously disappeared some years ago after visiting Ripley. Ripley, who had murdered Murchison to prevent the exposure of an art forgery scheme and then dumped his body in a nearby canal, grows increasingly anxious and angry as Pritchard harasses him and begins dredging the local canals.

Highsmith leads up to her resolution unsensationally and evenhandedly as she describes Ripley's ordinary days spent tending his dahlias, practicing Schubert on the harpsichord, relishing his meals and looking out tenderly for his wife, Heloise, and their housekeeper, Mme. Annette. The perfect gentleman, he is civil, considerate, utterly well mannered — and deadly.