Here is the expected return of one of the most attractive psychopaths in contemporary literature. Tom Ripley is living very happily with Heloise, his charming French wife, enjoying a refined and peaceful life in the little French town where he has settled, when the Pritchards, an enigmatic American couple, make an appearance. Simultaneously, Ripley begins receiving phone calls from someone he claims to be Dickie Greenleaf, the first dead Ripley has to his credit. The Pritchards, meanwhile, also seem to know a great deal about Murchison, another of the corpses Tom left behind in his eventful career. What will Ripley do in the face of this ominous return from the past, which assails him from various fronts?