Raven
Charles L Grant
NEL paperback, 214 pages, £4.99
Published August 1993
ISBN 0450577309
Review by Mike Don (1993)
The frame is conventional: (a faceless, seemingly invulnerable killer stalks a group of people trapped in one place) and the plot is obvious (the victims’ facades are slowly stripped away by the acid of strain and approaching death; cowardice, heroism, denial, madness . . .) yet Grant manages to demonstrate his literary flair with lucid prose and snappy dialogue. In short, Raven is an intelligent, subtle, pacey thriller, but it won’t raise Grant’s profile among UK readers. It will not be long-remembered.
It’s Grant’s style: one- and two-word paragraphs, the staccato descriptions leaving so much unsaid. Such speed and ambiguity works perfectly in the numerous romps and comedies that sell so well in the States, but it’s completely wrong for such a dark and bloody thriller, and totally undermines its intention to make you care who dies.
Grant seems indifferent to the pain he portrays, detached from the fate of his characters – so they become merely colourful counters moved on a playing board and, as the last page proves, interchangeable.
I suggest that Raven is a kind of experiment. As a prolific and clever writer, Grant is probably willing to waste the occasional book in the attempt at something new. Raven: something attempted, nothing gained.