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Title The Boy Who Followed Ripley

Recent paperback edition cover
Author	Patricia Highsmith
Country	United States
Language	English
Series	Ripliad
Genre(s)	Mystery novel
Publisher	Heinemann (UK) & Lippincott & Crowell (USA)
Released	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.

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 recognises 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 recognising 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.

An oddity occurs at the beginning of the book. Ripley refers to New England as his "native territory" and then confuses Boston with Philadelphia. "Boston. The fish market there, Independence Hall, Milk Street and Bread Street." Boston and Philly are merged in a blend of dysfunctional memory. The reader must wonder if the error belongs to Highsmith or to Ripley, a man given to acrobatic invention of "memories" to explain away his past crimes.

Highsmith captures the oppressive atmosphere of Cold War Germany, and the hedonism of West Berlin, and in particular the gay scene. Ripley tolerates — and sympathizes with — the gay characters he encounter, 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.