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10 Wickedly Good Books Examining the Nature of Evil

December 12 2022
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There’s nothing wrong with a happy ending—escapism is as valid as any other reason to read. But sometimes you’re looking for a story that takes a hard look at the darkest parts of the human spirit, the unrelenting and unforgiving cruelty that people sometimes wield against each other. So, if you’re looking for a dark read that matches these darker days of winter, or you’re just trying to push your literary boundaries, here are ten thrilling, chilling, and sleep-killing novels exploring the nature of evil.

A History of Fear
by Luke Dumas

I’m sure you’ve heard people, whether actual or fictional, saying “the Devil made me do it.” This is the excuse that Grayson Hale gives for the brutal murder of classmate Liam Stewart. After Hale’s execution, the authorities discover a handwritten manuscript where the infamous murderer explains the series of events that led up to the killing. Hale recounts arriving at the University of Edinburgh, where he makes money ghostwriting a dark novel for a stranger. This reawakens in him a paranoia that the Devil is after him, causing Hale to spiral into a world of delusion and depravity, consumed by a terrible fear that the person he’s working for is Satan himself. A tale of what hysteria and misdirection can lead us to do, A HISTORY OF FEAR will have you questioning what it is to be well and truly terrified.

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A History of Fear
Luke Dumas

“Readers, beware: this novel is not safe and will have you questioning what’s real for many sleepless nights to come.” —Clay McLeod Chapman, author of The Remaking

“A disorienting, creepy, paranoia-inducing reimagining of the devil-made-me-do-it tale” (Paul Tremblay, author of The Cabin at the End of the World) following the harrowing downfall of a tortured graduate student arrested for murder.

The Devil is in Scotland.

Grayson Hale, the most infamous murderer in Scotland, is better known by a different name: the Devil’s Advocate. The twenty-five-year-old American grad student rose to instant notoriety when he confessed to the slaughter of his classmate Liam Stewart, claiming the Devil made him do it.

When Hale is found hanged in his prison cell, officers uncover a handwritten manuscript that promises to answer the question that’s haunted the nation for years: was Hale a lunatic, or had he been telling the truth all along?

Unnervingly, Hale doesn’t fit the bill of a killer. The first-person narrative that centers this novel reveals an acerbic young atheist, newly enrolled at the University of Edinburgh to carry on the legacy of his recently deceased father. In need of cash, he takes a job ghostwriting a mysterious book for a dark stranger, but has misgivings when the project begins to reawaken his satanophobia, a rare condition that causes him to live in terror that the Devil is after him. As he struggles to disentangle fact from fear, Grayson’s world is turned upside-down after events force him to confront his growing suspicion that he’s working for the one he has feared all this time—and that the book is only the beginning of their partnership.​​

A History of Fear is a propulsive foray into the darkness of the human psyche, marrying dread-inducing atmosphere and heart-palpitating storytelling.

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The Lying Tongue
by Andrew Wilson

When Adam Woods arrives in Venice looking for a fresh start, he’s not expecting it to involve Gordon Crace, a former literary giant who fled the public eye in disgrace. Taking a job as Crace’s personal assistant, Adam spends his days with the author in his dilapidated yet grandiose home, organizing papers and doing chores. It’s during these menial tasks that Adam finds two letters that hint at the author’s dark secret, and he decides to write a tell-all biography of Crace to launch his own career. But little does he know that the former author is on to him, and there are bigger, more dangerous secrets lying in wait. Creepy and ominous, THE LYING TONGUE is a master class in suspense. Lovers of dark and psychological thrillers should be sure to pick this one up!

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The Lying Tongue
Andrew Wilson

Fresh from finishing university in England, Adam Woods arrives in Venice to begin a new chapter in his life. He soon secures employment as the personal assistant of Gordon Crace -- a famous expatriate novelist who makes his home in a dank and crumbling palazzo, surrounded by fabulous works of art, piles of unanswered correspondence and the memories of his former literary glory.

Before long Adam becomes indispensable to the feeble Crace, and he finds himself at once drawn to and repelled by his elderly employer's brilliant mind and eccentric habits. As Adam comes to learn more about the scandal that brought Crace to Venice years ago, he realizes he has stumbled upon the raw material that could launch his own literary career and makes a bold decision: He will secretly write the famous author's biography. But outsmarting Crace is easier said than done, and the two soon find themselves locked in a bitter contest over the right to determine how the story of Crace's life will end. Against the haunting backdrop of the serene city, the two men engage in a ruthless game of cat and mouse that builds to a breathtaking and unexpected conclusion.

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10 Wickedly Good Books Examining the Nature of Evil

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The Company
by Arabella Edge

Jean-Paul Sartre wrote in his play No Exit that “Hell is other people.” The characters in THE COMPANY would agree, so long as “people” refers to the extremely messed-up and power-hungry apothecary Jeronimus Cornelisz. After their ship, the Batavia, founders on rocks off the coast of western Australia, the remaining crew of seventeenth-century Dutch sailors are stuck with Cornelisz. The power-mad apothecary does everything in his power to turn the crew against one another in a bid to remain in control, committing and influencing some depraved acts in the process. This book is not for the faint of heart, or faint of stomach, for that matter.

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The Company
Arabella Edge

Based on the 1629 voyage of the Dutch East India Company flagship, Batavia -- which foundered off the coast of western Australia with its cargo of untold riches -- The Company tells the story of passenger Jeronimus Cornelisz, a heretical apothecary so twisted by lust and greed that he turns to mutiny, rape, torture, and murder.
With the ship wrecked, its passengers dying, and its treasure at the bottom of the sea, Cornelisz marshals his mesmerizing charisma to assume command of the survivors. For forty hellish days, Cornelisz incites a reign of terror, leaving his victims with just one wish -- that they had gone down with the ship.
In highly imaginative and exquisitely wrought prose, The Company "suggests that Robinson Crusoe was lucky to be marooned alone" (Publishers Weekly).

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10 Wickedly Good Books Examining the Nature of Evil

By Sara Roncero-Menendez | December 12, 2022

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Different Class
by Joanne Harris

No two students are alike, but Latin master Roy Straitley finds that they often fit a certain type of mold, be it the teacher’s pet or class clown. But a new headmaster starts to change things at St. Oswald’s Grammar in North Yorkshire, though Straitley remembers him as a student he had twenty years ago, one who held a multitude of secrets and wielded dark and terrible power. Will Straitley be able to figure out this headmaster’s true intention, or will he be swept away in these new changes? DIFFERENT CLASS asks us to examine how well we think we know others, either as friends or rivals.

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Different Class
Joanne Harris

“It’s Goodbye, Mr. Chips meets The Bad Seed. Joanne Harris’s latest novel, Different Class, has a killer elevator pitch and, what’s more, it delivers on its intriguing premise….[A] rich, dramatic tale that builds to a surprising conclusion.” —The Washington Post

“Harris delivers mischief and murder to an English prep school in Different Class, a delightfully malicious view of privileged students with overly active imaginations.” —The New York Times Book Review

From the New York Times bestselling author of Chocolat comes a dark, psychological suspense tale in the tradition of Patricia Highsmith about a sociopathic young outcast at an antiquated prep school and the curmudgeonly Latin teacher who uncovers his dangerous secret.

After thirty years at St. Oswald’s Grammar in North Yorkshire, England, Latin master Roy Straitley has seen all kinds of boys come and go. Each class has its own clowns, rebels, and underdogs—all who hold a special place in the old teacher’s heart. But every so often there’s a boy who doesn’t quite fit the mold. A troublemaker. A boy with darkness inside.

With insolvency and academic failure looming, a new headmaster arrives at the venerable school, bringing with him new technology, sharp suits, and even girls to the dusty corridors. But while Straitley does his sardonic best to resist these steps toward the future, a shadow from his past begins to stir again. A boy who still haunts Straitley’s dreams twenty years later. A boy capable of terrible things.

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My Second Death
by Lydia Cooper

It’s often safer not to be noticed, but for Mickey Brandis, it’s actually safer for the rest of us not to notice her. Mickey is a brilliant grad student with a penchant for detective work and an appetite for death that would scare off most people. When a fellow student asks her to solve a twenty-year-old cold case, Mickey can’t refuse. But the deeper into the case she looks, the stranger things become, and the closer she comes to the edge of letting her darker impulses run wild. Perfect for fans of Dexter or The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, MY SECOND DEATH will get under your skin and never let go.

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My Second Death
Lydia Cooper

In Lydia Cooper's wry and absorbing debut novel, we are introduced to Mickey Brandis, a brilliant twenty-eight-year-old doctoral candidate in medieval literature who is part Lisbeth Salander and part Dexter. She lives in her parents' garage and swears too often, but she never complains about the rain or cold, she rarely eats dead animals, and she hasn't killed a man since she was ten. Her life is dull and predictable but legal, and she intends to keep it that way.

But the careful existence Mickey has created in adulthood is upended when she is mysteriously led to a condemned house where she discovers an exquisitely mutilated corpse. The same surreal afternoon, she is asked by a timid, wall-eyed art student to solve a murder that occurred twenty years earlier. While she gets deeper and deeper into the investigation, she begins to lose hold on her tenuous connection to reality--to her maddening students and graduate thesis advisor; to her stoic parents, who are no longer speaking; to her confused, chameleon-like adolescent brother; and to her older brother, Dave, a zany poet who is growing increasingly erratic and keenly interested in Mickey's investigation.

Driven by an unforgettable voice, and filled with razor-sharp wit and vivid characters, My Second Death is a smart, suspenseful novel and a provocative examination of family, loyalty, the human psyche, and the secrets we keep to save ourselves.

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10 Wickedly Good Books Examining the Nature of Evil

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The English Monster
by Lloyd Shepherd

History has a funny way of connecting people and events, and the characters in THE ENGLISH MONSTER are no exception. The book takes place in two different moments in history: one plot line follows Billy Ablass in 1564 as he joins a slave-trading vessel, and the other shows Charles Horton, a senior officer of the newly formed Thames River Police Office, investigating the brutal Ratcliffe Highway murders in 1811. What does one narrative have to do with the other? The answer is harrowing, shocking, and downright disturbing—a must-read for any fan of dark historical fiction.

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The English Monster
Lloyd Shepherd

A page-turning historical thriller combining two tales that ultimately converge: the investigation into a brutal series of murders in 1811 London and the seafaring adventures of a young man in Elizabethan England.

Two moments in England’s rise to empire, separated by centuries, yet connected by a crime that cannot be forgiven . . .

London, 1811. Along the twisting streets of Wapping, bounded by the ancient Ratcliffe Highway and the modern wonder of the London Dock, many a sin is hidden by the noise and glory of Trade. But now two families have fallen victim to foul murder, and Charles Horton, a senior officer of the newly formed Thames River Police Office, must deliver revenge to a terrified populace.

Plymouth, 1564. Young Billy Ablass arrives in the busy seaport with the burning desire of all young men: the getting and keeping of money. Setting sail on a ship owned by Queen Elizabeth herself seems the likely means to a better life. But the kidnapping of hundreds of human souls in Africa is not the only cursed event to occur on England’s first official slaving voyage. On a sun-blasted Florida islet, Billy too is to be enslaved.

Based on the true story of the gruesome Ratcliffe Highway murders, The English Monster is a breathtaking voyage across centuries, from the Age of Discovery to the Age of Empire, illuminating what happens to Britain as she gains global power but risks losing her soul.

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The World Cannot Give
by Tara Isabella Burton

It’s easy to get swept up in the grandeur and mystique of a new place, so when Laura Stearns arrives at St. Dunstan’s Academy in New England, she’s instantly drawn to its strange ways. One of the weirdest, and most alluring, is its choir, which is led by the highly devout Virginia. Amid creepy crypts, dark rituals, and the students’ fanatical devotion to Christ, Laura must decide how far she’s willing to follow Virginia into the dark in order to get to the promised light at the end. THE WORLD CANNOT GIVE is eerie and subtle, right until it’s not, and a fascinating study of power and belief.

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The World Cannot Give
Tara Isabella Burton

The Girls meets Fight Club in this coming-of-age novel about queer desire, religious zealotry, and the hunger for transcendence among the devoted members of a cultic chapel choir in a prestigious Maine boarding school—and the obsessively ambitious, terrifyingly charismatic girl that rules over them.

When shy, sensitive Laura Stearns arrives at St. Dunstan’s Academy in Maine, she dreams that life there will echo her favorite novel, All Before Them, the sole surviving piece of writing by Byronic “prep school prophet” (and St. Dunstan’s alum) Sebastian Webster, who died at nineteen, fighting in the Spanish Civil War. She soon finds the intensity she is looking for among the insular, Webster-worshipping members of the school’s chapel choir, which is presided over by the charismatic, neurotic, overachiever Virginia Strauss. Virginia is as fanatical about her newfound Christian faith as she is about the miles she runs every morning before dawn. She expects nothing short of perfection from herself—and from the members of the choir.

Virginia inducts the besotted Laura into a world of transcendent music and arcane ritual, illicit cliff-diving and midnight crypt visits: a world that, like Webster’s novels, finally seems to Laura to be full of meaning. But when a new school chaplain challenges Virginia’s hold on the “family” she has created, and Virginia’s efforts to wield her power become increasingly dangerous, Laura must decide how far she will let her devotion to Virginia go.

The World Cannot Give is a shocking meditation on the power, and danger, of wanting more from the world.

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Catherine House
by Elisabeth Thomas

It would be fun to go to a dark and mysterious school, right? Wrong. Because you’re just as likely to end up strapped to a sacrificial altar, or, in the case of CATHERINE HOUSE, getting experimented on. The titular school is a prestigious university where all students agree to cut themselves off from the world—both from close ties as well as news and pop culture—in order to study and graduate with the best opportunities available to them. That is what Ines intends to do, and for a while she’s enjoying her time at Catherine House, until her roommate dies in “restoration.” Then Ines finds out the school is using a new material called Plasma to alter students and study the effects. Slow in buildup, the book takes a dark and disturbing turn, staring straight into the heart of human darkness and what (and who) we are willing to sacrifice for glory.

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Catherine House
Elisabeth Thomas

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Unholy Dying
by Robert Barnard

Rumors can be a terrible thing. Father Christopher Pardoe knows that better than most when he is accused of being the father of young Julie Norris’s unborn child. As the story circulates, it begins to draw attention from the outside, and soon, a murder occurs. But as the layers slowly peel away, Inspector Mike Oddie and Sergeant Charlie Peace find there’s more to this case than a simple broken vow of chastity and an unplanned pregnancy. A tale of hate, guilt, and fear, UNHOLY DYING highlights how little towns can hold a lot of darkness.

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Unholy Dying
Robert Barnard

England's celebrated, multiple-award-winning master crime novelist returns with a witty and poignant chiller about the evil of gossip and the sin of indifference.

Father Christopher Pardoe is a good priest. He cares about his parishioners. He is also a human being -- and is thus saddled with man's inherent weaknesses. Is it a bit odd, then, how much time the good Father has been spending at the house of a certain young, single mother called Julie Norris? And why, during each of his visits, are Julie's bedroom curtains always closed? Julie looks to be pregnant again. Just who could the father be?

As nasty rumors begin to scorch the parish phone lines, Father Pardoe is suspended from St. Catherine's, and Cosmo Horrocks, the West Yorkshire Chronicle's shameless, muckraking journalist, exploits the story in a big way. Nothing goes over better than a juicy sex-and-the-church scandal, except, perhaps, murder.

Do Father Pardoe and Julie protest too much? Why did Julie's parents throw her out and disown her? Is she really as bad as they say? And what, exactly, does Cosmo Horrocks hear in that London-to-Leeds dining car that makes him tingle with excitement? A tale of chastity besmirched? This story could make his year. But will it lead to tragedy? And, if so, whose?

When Inspector Mike Oddie and Sergeant Charlie Peace are called in to investigate a murder, they are saddened and surprised by the raw emotions -- the hate, the fear -- they find in the outwardly peaceful town of Shipley. There may be only one killer, but there are many others who must share the town's guilt and, perhaps, one day start the process of healing.

Rich with eccentric characters, crisp dialogue, stylish prose, and perceptive insights into human nature, Unholy Dying is vintage Barnard, acknowledged master of suspense.

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MENTIONED IN:

10 Wickedly Good Books Examining the Nature of Evil

By Sara Roncero-Menendez | December 12, 2022

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A Secret About a Secret
by Peter Spiegelman

A common trope in stories is when women are “fridged”—killed in gruesome and horrific ways—only for the story development of other characters, but A SECRET ABOUT A SECRET is one of the rare cases when the fridging is literal. When brilliant scientist Allegra Stans is found murdered in a walk-in fridge at the mysterious biotech firm Ondstrand Biologic, Agent Myles is sent in to discover what really happened. But Allegra had more than a few secrets, and just as many enemies who wanted her downfall. Bodies begin to pile up, and Myles finds himself embroiled in a web of lies and betrayals that can be traced back to long before Allegra stepped into the offices at Ondstrand House. A thriller with a dystopian twist, this is perfect for a reader who likes blending two genres into one powerful novel.

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A Secret About a Secret
Peter Spiegelman

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10 Wickedly Good Books Examining the Nature of Evil

By Sara Roncero-Menendez | December 12, 2022

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Photo credit: iStock / Maya23K

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