The novels of the new Dark Academia canon

Amy Gentry is the author of the feminist thrillers Good as Gone, Last Woman Standing, and Bad Habits, as well as Boys for Pele, a book of music criticism in the 33 1/3 series.

At CrimeReads she tagged the books of “'Dark Academia,' after the gothic, bookish online aesthetic that adopts The Secret History as its foundational text." One title on the list:

They Never Learn, Layne Fargo (2020)

Fargo’s book is the rare one on this list that features a professor in the lead—but in keeping with the Dark Academia aesthetic, she’s not a detective, but a serial killer. Antihero Scarlett is sultry yet calculating, deeply committed to pleasure, and bent on exacting her revenge on campus rapists. In They Never Learn, Fargo cleverly interweaves chapters about Scarlet’s shocking habit of murdering men at her college with a parallel story of a young student that will have readers wishing she would bump off a couple more.

Read about another entry on the list.

They Never Learn is among Molly Odintz's six best vigilante thrillers.

My Book, The Movie: They Never Learn.

--Marshal Zeringue