Portrait of a Murderer

A self-assured businessman murders his employer, husband of his mistress, which unintentionally provokes an ill-fated chain of events.

Tom Ripley is a talented mimic, moocher, forger and all-around criminal improviser; but there's more to Tom Ripley than even he can guess.

Charlie is a former classical pianist who has changed his name and now plays jazz in a grimy Paris bar. When Charlie's brothers, Richard and Chico, surface and ask for Charlie's help while on the run from gangsters they have scammed, he aids their escape. Soon Charlie and Lena, a waitress at the same bar, face trouble when the gangsters arrive, looking for his brothers.

When his young son is killed in a hit and run accident, Charles Thenier resolves to hunt down and murder the killer. By chance, Thenier makes the acquaintance of an actress, Helène Lanson, who was in the car at the time of the accident. He then meets Helène’s brother-in-law, Paul Decourt, a truly horrible individual.

An unlikely friendship between a dour, working class butcher and a repressed schoolteacher coincides with a grisly series of Ripper-type murders in a provincial French town.