Within this brilliant novel, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Donna Tartt gives us a richly textured and hypnotic story of golden youth corrupted by its moral arrogance.

Richard Papen had never been to New England before his nineteenth year. After that he arrived at Hampeden College and quickly became seduced by the lovely, dark rhythms of campus existence — in particular by at the very top band of five learners, Greek scholars, worldly, self-assured, and initially, highly unapproachable.

Yet simply because Richard was accepted and drawn to their internal circle, he learned a terrifying key that bound them to one another … a secret about an incident in the woods in the deceased of night time where a historical rite was brough to brutal existence … and result in a gruesome death. Which was just the start …