The narrator of this story is a boy who leaves California to attend a college in New England. He falls in with a group of students of Ancient Greek. Four of their number work themselves into a trance-like condition one night, and murder a local farmer. Bunny then tries to blackmail the others.
A misfit at an exclusive New England college, Richard finds kindred spirits in the five eccentric students of his ancient Greek class. But his new friends have a horrific secret. When blackmail and violence threaten to blow their privileged lives apart, they drag Richard into the nightmare that engulfs them. And soon they enter a terrifying heart of darkness from which they may never return.
Review:
The Secret History succeeds magnificently. . . . A remarkably powerful novel [and] a ferociously well-paced entertainment. . . . Forceful, cerebral, and impeccably controlled. --The New York Times
An accomplished psychological thriller. . . . Absolutely chilling. . . . Tartt has a stunning command of the lyrical. -- The Village Voice
Beautifully written, suspenseful from start to finish. -- Vogue
A haunting, compelling, and brilliant piece of fiction. . . . Packed with literary allusion and told with a sophistication and texture that owes much more to the nineteenth century than to the twentieth. -- The Times (London)
Her writing bewitches us. . . . The Secret History is a wonderfully beguiling book, a journey backward to the fierce and heady friendships of our school days, when all of us believed in our power to conjure up divinity and to be forgiven any sin. -- The Philadephia Inquirer
Enthralling. . . . A remarkably powerful novel.
