What it does provide is an immensely satisfying reading experience.' - Publishers Weekly Wisely, this novel eschews a feel-good resolution. The Little Friend flowers with emotional insight, a gift for comedy and a sure sense of pacing. 'In her first novel, Tartt unveiled a formidable intelligence. A novel of breathtaking ambition and power, it is rich in moral paradox, insights into human frailty, and storytelling brilliance.

Harriet's sole ally in this quest, her friend Hely, is devoted to her, but what they soon encounter has nothing to do with child's play: it is dark, adult, and all too menacing.Ī revelation of familial longing and sorrow, The Little Friend explores crime and punishment, as well as the hidden complications and consequences that hinder the pursuit of truth and justice. Fiercely determined, precocious far beyond her twelve years, and steeped in the adventurous literature of Stevenson, Kipling, and Conan Doyle, she resolves, one summer, to solve the murder and exact her revenge. His killer was never identified, nor has his family, in the years since, recovered from the tragedy.įor Harriet, who has grown up largely unsupervised, in a world of her own imagination, her brother is a link to a glorious past she has only heard stories about or glimpsed in photograph albums.

In a small Mississippi town, Harriet Cleve Dusfresnes grows up in the shadow of her brother, whowhen she was only a babywas found hanging dead from a black-tupelo tree in their yard. The hugely anticipated new novel by the author of The Secret Historya best-seller nationwide and around the world, and one of the most astonishing debuts in recent times The Little Friend is even more transfixing and resonant.

The little friend book review