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A quick learner, Ripley slips easily into the good life, soaking it up like a sponge: learning the language; absorbing tips on art and wardrobe choices. Outwardly calm, he’s a chameleon and a constantly alert predator: “I’m not someone to take advantage of people,” he lies to Dickie. The heir to his father’s fortune is so comfortably and complacently settled into his trust-funded existence that little unsettles him. Marge, however, is more wary, becoming convinced that Tom is gay. But while homoerotic undercurrents certainly abound, the abiding impression of Tom is as a wily, sexually ambiguous opportunist. When it comes to the unsuspecting couple, his goal is to win their trust and then pry them apart, to create uncertainty, rock the boat and benefit from the disruption.

Impressively, Zaillian conveys this without explanatory dialogue. It’s all there in the impassive, unnervingly intense expression on Scott’s face, the steady watchful gaze that quickly sizes up all that it surveys. A wonderfully creepy scene has him trying on Dickie’s clothes, imitating his voice and rehearsing a break-up with Marge.

But it’s also there in the way that the camera lingers on coveted objects: an admired fountain pen, an expensive ring, a Murano glass ashtray, a Picasso painting, Ferragamo loafers. Textures come vividly alive: waves rippling in the sea; gnarled tree trunks; creases in linen shirts; curls of cigarette smoke.

Robert Elswit’s stunning cinematography, with its crystal-clear, superbly composed and rendered deep-focus images shades everything with a sense of danger. An Oscar-winning cinematographer who’s worked with Paul Thomas Anderson (Boogie Nights, Magnolia, There Will be Blood) and shot George Clooney’s period drama, Good Night, and Good Luck in velvety black-and-white, Elswit repeatedly frames Ripley in windows, doorways and alleyways, a character in perpetual transition.

The evocative imagery is combined with an equally inventive and sometimes deliberately intrusive soundscape: typewriter keys clacking; shoes clomping on stairs; thunder rumbling; birds fluttering; water dripping; ice cubes cracking. Heightening the atmosphere of unease, this symphony of everyday sounds is keenly attuned its environment but also accentuated, creating the impression that the world is closing in around Ripley, a sensation appropriate for a man who’s constantly alert and for a killer being hunted.

Zaillian’s gripping account of Ripley’s progress also is pierced by bursts of black humour: an out-of-control boat chaotically zipping around following a gruesome murder; an Italian policeman grappling with English spelling and pronunciation; the endless stone stairwells.

In that playful spirit, in a nod to previous portrayals of Highsmith’s amoral hero, the final episode introduces shady art dealer Reeves Minot, who doesn’t appear until the second novel, and casts John Malkovich, who plays the title character in Liliana Cavani’s 2002 adaptation of that book.

An exquisite tension runs through Zaillian’s beautifully crafted series. And, as with Highsmith’s diamond-sharp novels, it manages to make a viewer almost complicit, creating a keen curiosity about how the protagonist might escape detection and wondering – if not quite hoping – if he’ll get away it.

Even as Ripley repels, he invites engagement and a sneaking respect for the extent of his guile. His art is the way he goes about his nefarious business. Maurizio Lombardi, who plays police Inspector Ravini, has described his scenes with Scott as being like a chess game between the characters, with the lines of dialogue representing their moves.

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It’s a thoroughly entertaining game. If not a little unsettling.

Ripley is on Netflix.

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