Books If You Like The Secret History (2024)

If you're a fan of Donna Tartt's captivating novel The Secret History, you're likely drawn to the dark academia vibes, mysterious circ*mstances and the intricate dynamics between a group of students at an elite institution. The allure of these stories lies in their ability to transport us into a world where the pursuit of knowledge intertwines with secrets, betrayals and the consequences of youthful ambition.

In this curated selection, we delve into novels that capture the essence of The Secret History while offering fresh perspectives and unique narratives. These books promise to keep you hooked with their atmospheric settings, complex characters, and the unraveling of long-held secrets.

The interview room is small and square. A table, three plastic chairs, a high frosted window, the glass grimy with dust, strip lighting; our faces cast in dingy yellow shadow.

Two cups of tea: one for the female police officer, one for me. White with two sugars. Too much milk, but I’m not in a position to complain. The rim of my cup is patterned with indentations where, a few minutes previously, I bit into the polystyrene.

The walls are off-white. They remind me of the squash courts at the RAC on Pall Mall where, just a few days ago, I demolished an opponent who was several positions ahead of me in the club rankings. He was a banker. Florid face. Baggy shorts. Surprisingly lean thigh muscles. I dispatched him fairly swiftly: serve, slice, smash. The rubber thwack of the ball as it pinged into concrete, a dark green full stop at the end of each rally. Grunting. Swearing. Eventual defeat. Aggression contained within four walls.

The police station has a similar feel: a sort of bristling masculinity even though only one of the two officers interviewing me is male. The woman has clearly been designated ‘good cop’. It was she who offered me the tea, said it would be beneficial. She also suggested two sugars.

‘You know,’ she added, meeting my gaze, ‘after the shock.’

It’s true, I hadn’t expected the police to turn up on my doorstep this morning. It’s only the second time in my thirty-nine years that I have found myself interviewed by the authorities. On both occasions, it has been because of Ben. Which is odd, really, given that he’s my best friend. You’d expect best friends to take better care of each other.

The female police officer is short with rounded shoulders and a pleasant, freckled face. Her hair has been dyed that indeterminate colour inexplicably beloved of middle-aged women, which is neither brown nor blonde but somewhere in between. A kind of beige. Brittle at the ends.

Her colleague is tall. One of those men whose height is his defining feature. He stooped when he walked through the door, holding a sheaf of papers in hands the colour of supermarket ham. Grey suit with a white mark on the lapel. Toothpaste, perhaps. Or the left-behind smear of a baby’s breakfast. He is, I’d guess, in his early thirties.

A muddy black-and-white newspaper photography. I’m standing on a scaffold made from two tall stepladders with boards running between them. I’ve barely begun the mural, haven’t even started putting color on the wall of the brand-new post office. In the photo, the wall looks almost blank, though if you know what you’re looking for, you can faintly see the penciled grid I’ve been laying out, where I’ll soon sketch the underlying form of my plan—curving lines moving across the space, swelling and rising and breaking like waves, the flow of energy moving left to right like a line of text. Up on the scaffold, my head nearly touches the ceiling. My tousle-top hair needs a trim. I’m wearing baggy khaki pants and a workingman’s T-shirt and an old pair of Converse All Stars. In the photograph, the paint stains barely show. I’m holding a brush in my hand, not because I’ve been using it but because the photographer asked me to hold it where the camera would see it. Long and Eve stand a few feet apart on the new black-and-white tile floor, their chins lifted, looking up at me. Eve is wearing a fancy show business cowgirl outfit. She looks a little silly, and at that moment somewhat ordinary. Long wears a dark business suit with subtle Western yokes on the chest. The photo highlights the gray at his temples and emphasizes the difference in their ages. They’re tired, having driven hours from Cheyenne after a few late nights of political business, lobbying and glad-handing. The flashbulb pops and records the moment we first met, and it was news. The caption on the front page of the Dawes Journal read, After Cheyenne trip, prominent rancher John Long and wife greet WPA painter.

MID-AFTERNOON, MAY, UNDER AN EMPTY HIGH-ALTITUDE sky, cool but the sun blazing like it yearned to cinder you, I took a right turn off pavement and passed under a massive H-shaped ponderosa-log entryway. A nearly discreet sign swinging on two chains from the crossmember read Long Shot. Down the dirt drive, two black arcs of telephone and electric lines drooped pole to pole for half a mile of tallgrass and sage.

In her dreams, Conrad was still alive.

They were banal, domestic little scenes: she could still smell whatever dinner he’d cooked, and she’d be washing the dishes when he’d slide his arms around her waist. She’d feel the brush of his lips against the nape of her neck, The Archers low in the background. The oddest fragments returned to her: Sunday morning toast crumbs in bed coming back to haunt them on Sunday night; leaning over him to look out of the plane window as they were coming in to land at Dublin; walking the dog through Hardcastle Crags on a lazy Saturday afternoon – that smell of damp mulch and wild garlic.

Other times she’d simply dream she was listening to him breathe. He always fell asleep the second his head touched the pillow, like he had narcolepsy or something, and so Niamh, a fitful sleeper at best, would often fixate on his peaceful tide to quiet her chatty brain.

Awaking now, she reached for him, only to feel the cold side of the bed.

It was like pressing a thumb on a bruise every single time.

Why am I awake?

Her phone. Her phone was ringing. She remembered she was on call. sh*te.

She kicked off the duvet and pushed a nest of auburn hair out of her face. Her phone vibrated on the nightstand, the display reading BARKER FARM. It was 00.53. Still the Witching Hour, she thought ruefully. A common misconception; any hour’s grand for witching.

Niamh cleared her throat. She always thought it seemed unprofessional to sound like she’d been sleeping while on call, although it was rare for someone to phone this late.

‘Hello? Mrs Barker?’

‘Oh hello, Dr Kelly,’ Joan said in her best telephone voice. ‘I do hope I didn’t wake you?’

‘Not at all,’ Niamh lied. ‘Are you OK out there?’

‘It’s Pepper again …’ No further explanation was necessary. The horse was old. Old and tired.

‘I’ll be right over in ten,’ Niamh said.

She threw on whatever mismatched clothes were piled on the back of her dresser chair, and pulled her hair into a ponytail. Tiger barely stirred from his basket as she tiptoed through the kitchen, offering only a nasal huff to express his irritation at being awakened. The Border Terrier was quite used to her nocturnal comings and goings.