The Secret History succeeds magnificently ... A remarkably powerful novel [and] a ferociously well-paced entertainment ... Forceful, cerebral, and impeccably controlled

So irresistible and seductive it's almost a guilty pleasure

A huge, mesmerizing, galloping read

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

Takes my breath away

Brilliant and compulsive

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