Eva works as a decoy. Her job is to test husbands for their fidelity. Her good friend Corinna gives her a particularly well-paid assignment. She is to seduce Stefan, the husband of the very wealthy Christiane Reedmann, and lure him into a trap. A short time later, Christiane is killed and all the evidence points to Eva as the murderer. Now Eva herself is caught in the trap.

Tom Ripley - cool, urbane, wealthy, and murderous - lives in a villa in the Veneto with Luisa, his harpsichord-playing girlfriend. A former business associate from Berlin's underworld pays a call asking Ripley's help in killing a rival. Ripley - ever a student of human nature - initiates a game to turn a mild and innocent local picture framer into a hit man. The artisan, Jonathan Trevanny, who's dying of cancer, has a wife, young son, and little to leave them. If Ripley draws Jonathan into the game, can Ripley maintain control? Does it stop at one killing? What if Ripley develops a conscience?