Under the influence of their charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at an elite New England college discover a way of thinking and living that is a world away from the humdrum existence of their contemporaries. But when they go beyond the boundaries of normal morality their lives are changed profoundly and for ever.

'Enthralling . . . image the plot of Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment crossed with the story of Euripides' Bacchae set against the backdrop of Bret Easton Ellis's The Rules of Attraction . . . forceful, cerebral and impeccably controlled . . . ferociously well-paced . . . remarkably powerful' The New York Times

'Donna Tartt is an amazingly good writer. She's dense, she's allusive. She's a gorgeous storyteller' Stephen King

Donna Tartt was born in Greenwood, Mississippi, and is a graduate of Bennington College. She is the author of the novels The Secret History and The Little Friend, which have been translated into thirty languages, and The Goldfinch.