Fans plot to be the first readers of a reclusive writer’s long-awaited new blockbuster:

“On Mother’s Day in 1964 a boy of nine is found hanging from a tree. This mysterious killing changes everything for his family. It is also the mysterious killing at the heart of the most jealously guarded second novel in publishing history: Donna Tartt’s The Little Friend.

Tartt’s first book, published 10 years ago when she was 28, was a literary sensation. The Secret History told the suspenseful story of a privileged band of classics scholars who attended an elite American college. A potent mix of murder, adolescent sexual tension and ancient Greek ritual, it sold more than a million copies in the United States alone, and has been translated into 23 languages.

Now the long wait for Tartt’s next book is almost over. Simultaneous publication of The Little Friend in the United States and in Britain is set for the end of October. For the enigmatic author’s devoted fans, however, a few more weeks of patience is proving hard to muster. Some are prepared to go to extraordinary lengths to be first to buy a copy.” Guardian UK