Stacy Horn's 6 favorite works that explore the spectrum of evil
The author recommends works by Kazuo Ishiguro, Anthony Doerr, and more

When you make a purchase using links on our site, The Week may earn a commission. All reviews are written independently by our editorial team.
Stacy Horn's forthcoming book, "The Killing Fields of East New York," reveals how a 1970s white-collar crime spree transformed a Brooklyn neighborhood into the city's deadliest. Below, Horn recommends books that reset a reader's understanding of evil and complicity.
'The Glass Hotel' by Emily St. John Mandel (2020)
How do people like Bernie Madoff live with themselves after knowingly destroying many lives? This novel, a subtle masterpiece with a Ponzi scheme at its center, shows evil's complexity and how we all become to some extent corrupted. Everyone is trapped by forces within and without. We transcend those forces to the degree we're able to, or, in many cases, not at all. Buy it here.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
'Never Let Me Go' by Kazuo Ishiguro (2005)
Another masterpiece, this novel depicts the various attitudes ordinary people assume in order to go about their lives in the face of unspeakable injustice. Ishiguro's characters are also trapped at different points on a spectrum of evil, some directly participating in a ghastly cloning operation, others discovering it to be horrifying, but moving on. Buy it here.
'All the Light We Cannot See' by Anthony Doerr (2014)
Doerr's World War II novel somehow manages to be enchanting and hopeful while exploring the moral ambiguities we encounter along the bell curve of evil. A captivating array of answers to impossible questions. Buy it here.
'Shot in the Heart' by Mikal Gilmore (1994)
Detectives who investigate unsolved homicides, I have learned, do not always hate the murderers they capture. Gilmore's story of his family, and of his brother who was executed for murder, is a heartbreaking account of the origins of evil and how hate is sometimes not the most enlightened or productive response. Buy it here.
'The Chickenshit Club' by Jesse Eisinger (2017)
How do the "good guys" live with themselves when they repeatedly let unrepentant criminals go, enabling them to ruin more lives? This book explains why we don't prosecute financial criminals. Learning of the gradual "boiling frog" enfeebling of the Justice Department is painful. Buy it here.
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
'Poverty, by America' by Matthew Desmond (2023)
Poverty in America persists, Desmond illustrates, because the rest of us benefit when our country does "so much more to subsidize affluence than to alleviate poverty." We all fall somewhere on the bell curve of evil, and the fact that we don't take this seriously is perhaps the greatest evil. We should do more. Buy it here.
This article was first published in the latest issue of The Week magazine. If you want to read more like it, you can try six risk-free issues of the magazine here.
-
Democrats: The 2028 race has begun
Feature Democratic primaries have already kicked off in South Carolina
-
The Pentagon's missing missiles
Feature The U.S. military is low on weapons. Can it restock before a major conflict breaks out?
-
Rescissions: Trump's push to control federal spending
Feature The GOP passed a bill to reduce funding for PBS, NPR and other public media stations
-
The Coldplay kiss cam affair: a cautionary tale
In the Spotlight The pair became 'the most googled people on the planet' after getting caught having an affair at a Coldplay concert
-
Connie Francis: superstar of the early 1960s pop scene
In the Spotlight The 'Pretty Little Baby' and 'Stupid Cupid' singer has died aged 87
-
Friendship: 'bromance' comedy starring Paul Rudd and Tim Robinson
The Week Recommends 'Lampooning and embracing' middle-aged male loneliness, this film is 'enjoyable and funny'
-
6 head-turning homes for town house living
Feature Featuring a roof deck with city views in South Carolina and a renovated Harlem brownstone in New York City
-
Bookish: delightful period detective drama from Mark Gatiss
The Week Recommends 'Cosy crime' series is a 'standout pleasure' in an Agatha Christie-style formula
-
Music Reviews: Justin Bieber, Wet Leg, and Clipse
Feature "Swag," "Moisturizer," and "Let God Sort Em Out"
-
Film reviews: Eddington and Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight
Feature A New Mexico border town goes berserk and civil war through a child's eyes
-
Art Review: Hilma af Klint's What Stands Behind the Flowers
Feature Museum of Modern Art, New York City, through Sept. 27