7 Unputdownable Novels About Secret Societies

Before THE DA VINCI CODE, Dan Brown’s crime-solving professorial protagonist Robert Langdon went to the Vatican in ANGELS & DEMONS. In this intellectual, action-packed pager-turner, an ancient secret society has stolen powerful antimatter to create an apocalyptic time bomb that threatens the Vatican’s existence. To prevent the destruction, Langdon teams up with an Italian scientist to solve the clues that may be able to prevent the explosion, before it’s too late.

In THE PARTING GLASS, two women struggle to embrace their true selves within the sharply stratified world of nineteenth century New York City. By day, Mary is an obedient maid to the wealthy socialite Charlotte. But by night, Mary unwinds by drinking with the dangerous members of a secret society while Charlotte pursues an affair with a stable boy, who happens to be Mary’s brother. Lush and provocative, this debut novel will appeal to fans of Sarah Waters’s historical fiction.

What happens when the monsters of classic fantasy and science fiction’s most fearful scientists finally meet their creators? In THE STRANGE CASE OF THE ALCHEMIST’S DAUGHTER, Mary Jekyll is on a mission to hunt down her father’s partner, famed murderer Edward Hyde. Together with his daughter, Diana, and a handful of other female experimentations, Mary soon learns that her father, Hyde, and many others were members of a fearsome secret society, and it’s up to them to put a stop to the madness.

SCHOOL FOR PSYCHICS is the first in K.C. Archer’s new series about a school of psychics and the forces trying to manipulate them. Teddy is a headstrong young woman with the ability to read people with uncanny accuracy. Soon, she’s invited to a secret, cutthroat institution that trains the talented to work in the upper echelons of the U.S. government. But all is not as it seems, and Teddy must identify friend and foe before her own abilities are used against her.

A fantastical reimagining of Leigh Bardugo’s own time at Yale University, NINTH HOUSE follows Alex Stern, the sole survivor of a multiple homicide. While recovering in the hospital, Alex is offered a full-ride scholarship to Yale University by a mysterious benefactor who asks only that Alex monitor Yale’s aristocratic secret societies while she’s there. But Alex soon learns this is no easy task as the activities of these societies are far darker and more deadly than she could have ever imagined.

In Robin Sloan’s award-winning romp, Clay Jannon, a web-design expert in San Francisco, is forced to work in a bookshop after the recession costs him his job. But all is not what it seems in this hole-in-the-wall store. Suspicious customers “check out” mysterious volumes and no one ever buys a book. After Clay begins snooping for answers, he discovers a bookish cult beyond his wildest imagination. MR. PENUMBRA’S 24-HOUR BOOKSTORE offers readers a thrilling, witty love letter to books with an old-fashioned sensibility.

A lesser-known whodunit by the queen of mystery Agatha Christie, THE SEVEN DIALS MYSTERY appears, on its surface, to be nothing more than a prank gone wrong. A party of houseguests decides to tease Gerry Wade, who is well-known for being a marathon sleeper, by setting eight alarms, all meant to go off one right after the other. But when one alarm does not sound, their prank has fatal consequences. Featuring characters from Christie’s other books, this novel offers a look at the complex web of Christie’s own oeuvre.