Herbert Greenleaf approaches Tom in a New York bar and offers to pay his way to Italy to retrieve his son Dickie.

Tom has dinner with Herbert and Emily Greenleaf at their home, learning about Dickie's life in Mongibello.

Tom meets Dickie and Marge on the beach in Mongibello for the first time.

Tom reveals to Dickie that Herbert paid his way to Italy, and they bond over mocking Herbert's plan.

Tom moves out of his hotel and into Dickie's house in Mongibello as a live-in guest.

Dickie comes home and catches Tom wearing his clothes in his bedroom and begins pulling away from their friendship.

Tom receives a letter from Herbert ending their financial arrangement and panics about his shrinking funds.

Tom murders Dickie with a boat oar in a rented motorboat far offshore near San Remo.

Tom ties Dickie's body to the boat anchor and drops it overboard, then scuttles the blood-soaked boat.

Tom returns to Mongibello and tells Marge that Dickie has decided to stay in Rome to study painting.

Tom checks into a Rome hotel under Dickie's name using Dickie's passport and begins living as Dickie Greenleaf.

Freddie Miles arrives at Tom's Rome apartment and begins to suspect Tom is impersonating Dickie.

Tom kills Freddie with a heavy ashtray and disposes of the body by driving it to the outskirts of Rome.

Tom abandons Dickie's identity, buys a car to establish a cover story, and presents himself to the Venice police as Tom Ripley.

Tom receives Herbert Greenleaf's letter in Greece confirming the family will honor Dickie's will and hand over his estate.

Tom Ripley, a New York con artist, accepts a wealthy man's offer to travel to Italy and persuade his son Dickie to come home. After ingratiating himself into Dickie's life in Mongibello, Tom is caught wearing Dickie's clothes and senses their friendship is ending. Facing the loss of his comfortable new life, Tom murders Dickie in a rented boat and assumes his identity in Rome. When Dickie's friend Freddie Miles threatens to expose him, Tom kills Freddie and disposes of his body outside the city. Mounting pressure from the police and forged bank checks force Tom to abandon Dickie's identity and reinvent himself as Tom Ripley once more. Tom ultimately escapes justice when the Greenleaf family honors the forged will, granting him all of Dickie's wealth.

Tom Ripley's rise from con artist to murderous impersonator.

Tom runs an IRS tax scam as George McAlpin in New York before Herbert Greenleaf approaches him.

Tom says goodbye to his friend Cleo on his last night in New York before sailing to Europe.

Tom spends several sick days at the Mongibello hotel watching Dickie and Marge sail without him.

Tom and Dickie take an overnight trip to Naples and Rome, staying out all night before returning to Mongibello.

Tom spies through a window and watches Dickie kiss Marge to make up with her after a fight.

Marge and Dickie have a fight that causes Marge to call off the planned ski trip to Cortina with Freddie.

Tom walks back to his San Remo hotel after the murder, playing the role of a casual beachgoer recovering from the water.

Tom packs up Dickie's belongings in Mongibello and arranges to have them shipped to Rome.

Tom travels to Paris as Dickie with lightened hair and attends a cocktail party with French expatriates.

The Roman police question Tom, posing as Dickie, about Freddie's murder the day after the body is found.

Tom reads a newspaper article revealing that the bloodstained boat from San Remo has been discovered by police.

Tom buys a used car near Verona and sleeps in it overnight to establish a credible cover story for his reappearance.

Tom writes a letter to Herbert suggesting Dickie may have died by suicide and urging him to accept the theory.

Herbert Greenleaf arrives in Venice with American private detective Alvin McCarron to investigate Dickie's disappearance.

Dickie's stored possessions are discovered at American Express in Venice, but police conclude Dickie placed them there himself.

Before Tom leaves New York, he has already been living by his wits through small cons and scams, laying the groundwork for the larger deception ahead. In Mongibello, Tom struggles as an outsider watching Dickie and Marge's easy companionship from a distance before finally breaking through. After murdering Dickie and returning to Mongibello, Tom methodically dismantles Dickie's life there before rebuilding it in Rome and Paris as his own. The discovery of the bloodstained boat at San Remo complicates everything, as the police begin to close in on Dickie as a suspect in two crimes. Tom reinvents himself as Tom Ripley through careful misdirection, including sleeping in a borrowed car to create a plausible alibi for his months of absence. The final resolution comes when even the discovery of Dickie's stored possessions works in Tom's favor, with police concluding Dickie hid them deliberately to evade capture.

The supporting scenes and schemes behind Tom's European deception.

Tom boards his ship to Europe and deliberately begins transforming his persona into that of a serious, sophisticated young man.

Tom arrives in Italy by train and is struck by the Leaning Tower of Pisa, taking it as a good omen for his new life.

Tom gives Dickie the gifts from his mother, exhausting his stated reason for continued contact with Dickie.

Tom meets Freddie Miles for the first time at a bus stop in Mongibello and immediately takes a strong dislike to him.

Tom dresses in Dickie's clothes and practices Dickie's voice and mannerisms alone in front of his bedroom mirror.

Tom proposes traveling to Paris in coffins as part of a smuggling scheme, and Dickie flatly refuses to participate.

On the train to San Remo, Tom decides to kill Dickie and steal his identity after sensing the friendship is ending.

Tom writes letters to Marge posing as Dickie, inventing a fictional painter named Di Massimo to explain Dickie's absence.

Tom returns to Rome from Paris and rents an apartment for a full year to establish Dickie's ongoing presence in the city.

Tom flees to Palermo after the Roman police write to Dickie requesting he return for further questioning.

Tom forges Dickie's will leaving everything to Tom Ripley, then throws Dickie's typewriter into a Venice canal.

Marge discovers Dickie's rings while searching Tom's Venice home for a sewing kit.

Tom contemplates killing Marge with a shoe before she accepts his explanation about the rings and begins to cry.

Private detective McCarron takes Tom aside and asks privately whether Tom believes Dickie was responsible for Freddie's murder.

Police officers on the dock in Greece ignore Tom completely upon his arrival, and he realizes he has escaped capture.

Tom's transformation begins before he even reaches Italy, as he deliberately constructs a new persona on the ocean voyage over. His early days in Mongibello are defined by careful observation of Dickie — his mannerisms, his rings, his voice — and a growing obsession with inhabiting his life. The friendship's unraveling happens through a series of small revelations: a smuggling scheme Dickie refuses, a kiss Tom secretly witnesses, a moment Tom sees himself wearing Dickie's clothes in the mirror. The decision to kill Dickie crystallizes on the train to San Remo, and each subsequent crime — including forging Dickie's will — is driven by Tom's compulsive need to hold onto what he has stolen. Even as Tom fears exposure at every turn, culminating in his terrified arrival at the Greece dock, the world consistently fails to see through him. The novel closes not with safety but with the permanent uncertainty of a man who has escaped justice yet can never stop looking over his shoulder.

The key decisions, discoveries, and emotional shifts that drive Tom's transformation.