Review: Ravens

While on their way from Ohio to Florida, Shaw McBride and Romeo Zderko stop at a gas station in Brunswick, Georgia.  Shaw overhears a clerk telling someone that a local family has purchased the winning lottery ticket for the $318 million dollar jackpot at that store.  Shaw cooks up a scheme to extort half of the money from the Boatwright family.  He holds the family hostage while Romeo prowls around ready to murder their family and friends at a moment’s notice.

The Boatwrights resist at first, but eventually go along with Shaw’s plan out of fear for their loved ones.  At the press conference, Shaw announces that he will be giving all of his half of the money away to charity.  All of a sudden, he has a huge legion of followers who think he can perform miracles.  It seems like Shaw and the Boatwrights are getting along well but there are things brewing under the surface.

George Dawes Green does a masterful job of building and maintaining suspense in Ravens.  This is a fast-paced page turner, that I couldn’t put down.  The character development is good, even though this is a plot driven book.  I had an intense dislike for Shaw and sympathy for Romeo.  There are lots of twists and turns, so the ending was totally unexpected for me, but I think it worked very well.  There’s even a little dark humor in this one.  The setting – a small, dead-end town in the deep South – almost became another character for me because I know exactly what those kinds of towns are like.

George Dawes Green is the author of two other novels – The Caveman’s Valentine and The Juror – both of which have been made into movies.  I plan to go back and read both of them.  This is his first novel in fourteen years.  Check back tomorrow for an interview with him.

Review copy provided by Hachette Books.