A schoolteacher in 1930s Edinburgh selects six favorite pupils, tells them they are the crème de la crème, and slowly reveals a fascist sympathy that will betray them all. Under 130 pages. Narrative flash-forwards announce who dies before you know who they are. Spark's economy is brutal — sentences like ice, structure like a trap snapping shut.

The case for it, the case against, and the rest of the canon open with Pro.