Copertina rigida, 368 pagine
lingua English
Pubblicato il 11 Aprile 2017 da Flatiron Books.
On the day Oliver Marks is released from jail, the man who put him there is waiting at the door. Detective Colborne wants to know the truth, and after ten years, Oliver is finally ready to tell it.
A decade ago: Oliver is one of seven young Shakespearean actors at Dellecher Classical Conservatory, a place of keen ambition and fierce competition. In this secluded world of firelight and leather-bound books, Oliver and his friends play the same roles onstage and off: hero, villain, tyrant, temptress, ingénue, extras.
But in their fourth and final year, good-natured rivalries turn ugly, and on opening night real violence invades the students’ world of make-believe. In the morning, the fourth-years find themselves facing their very own tragedy, and their greatest acting challenge yet: convincing the police, each other, and themselves that they are innocent.
You have to like Shakespeare for this one. It is steeped in his drama.
I think this book was a take on what's now called 'dark academia' that came from Tartt's Secret History. 'Villains' did do a good job of showing the cult-like bonding of repertory acting and you do fall in love with the characters. But it didn't touch the subtle sinking into the depths that Tartt's original does.
The tension and the character building in this book are exquisite. The author's capacity for obscuring the finale, while also tastefully and intentionally leaving breadcrumbs along the way, made this book an engaging and engrossing novel until the very last sentence of the epilogue.
