The Secret History

I just finished reading The Secret History by Donna Tartt. I read her second novel, The Little Friend, first, and I almost didn't pick up her debut novel as I didn't enjoy Friend that much. They seem to have been written by different authors, which I suppose is a testament to her abilities. This book is meaty and thick, both in length and in language, not a beach read -- my kind of writing.

Excerpt of synopsis from Amazon: Part psychological thriller, part chronicle of debauched, wasted youth, it suffers from a basically improbable plot, a fault Tartt often redeems through the bravado of her execution. Narrator Richard Papen comes from a lower-class family and a loveless California home to the "hermetic, overheated atmosphere" of Vermont's Hampden College. Almost too easily, he is accepted into a clique of five socially sophisticated students who study Classics with an idiosyncratic, morally fraudulent professor. Finally they reveal to Richard that they accidentally killed a man during a bacchanalian frenzy; when one of their number seems ready to spill the secret, the group--now including Richard--must kill him, too.

It took her ten years to write this book, and another ten before her second was published. This fact certainly puts a bit of a dark tint on my rose-colored view of becoming a novelist one day!

I'm currently reading The Amber Room by Steve Berry. In contrast, this book is a very easy read and reminds me a lot (too much) of The DaVinci Code. Since there is a large, glowing quote from Dan Brown on the dust jacket I am guessing they are colleagues. Like Code, this book seems as though it was written with the thought of it being made into a movie, ignoring many opportunities for insight into characters' thoughts and foregoing description of places and people in lieu of action. This topic interests me greatly, so I'll look for a good historical non-fiction account of the room and the search for it after World War II.

So, a recommendation for The Secret History and a pass on The Amber Room from me.