BOOK REVIEW: This book is devastating, but look, pretty prose!

Donna Tartt’s lyrical thriller exposes the dark side of admiration and intellect.

Donna Tartt’s ‘The Secret History’ is one of those rare novels that completely earns its cult status. It is marketed as a murder mystery, yet reducing it to that genre feels almost unfair. The murder is revealed within the opening pages, and from that moment onward, the novel becomes less concerned with who committed the crime and far more interested in why people commit evil in the first place.