There are two facts I must convey to you before reviewing the book. One: I am extremely uncomfortable, to the point of pain, around people with cognitive and/or communicative disorders or inabilities. Two: I was the object of my pedophile mother's sexual interest until I was fifteen.Unsurprisingly, these aren't the sorts of themes I find enjoyable to find in my leisure reading. "Raven Black" has both! I was thinking seriously of abandoning the read, just quietly taking the book back to the library and forgetting it existed. Cleeves managed to make that an undesirable option, and in doing so, made it possible for me to hold a very unflattering mirror up to my character.The younger of my two grandsons is autistic. It is extremely hard for his mother to cope with the demands of two active, intelligent, communicative children plus an active, intelligent, uncommunicative one. I don't know how she does it. I would be incapable of doing one-third what she does, with (at long last) support and help from her (second) husband.Magnus Tait, one of our POV characters, is cognitively impaired. It was *horrible* for me to read the sections of text told from his POV because I could not bear to be in this close contact with him. It made me think of the helpless inability I feel when confronted with my autistic grandson...that sense of having nothing of myself to offer, of withdrawal from avoidable contact...no one can tell me the boy isn't aware of it, and while Magnus isn't autistic, it was a close-enough situation, and to know from the inside what chill and distance feels like...well, how awful, how awful to know it, feel it, and be unable to *understand* it.At least I understand. But funnily enough, that fails to make it better. It makes it worse.Pedophilia is present in several characters, no spoilers so no names, and the object of desire's POV is used in the story as well. It's unbelieveable to me that Cleeves can recreate the unmixed-but-unsettled feelings of a child who holds that kind of intoxicating, terrifying, inappropriate power over an adult. I hope not, for her sake, but I felt "takes one to know one" so many times in reading certain parts of the book.The thriller aspects of the book were nicely done, though as an old hand I pegged the murderer and motive fairly early on...but, discomfitingly, I found that I wanted the truth not to be what I knew, but what my prejudices drooled over.I recommend this book to the unsqueamish. It's strong stuff. Nothing that happens in it is gratuitous. The guilty, and I mean those morally guilty, are punished severely. There is a bleak pleasure in that.
This is the first Ann Cleeves work that I’ve read and, once again, I praise the web-site Fantastic Fiction where I can find out what series an author has written and the chronological order of the books in each; and our public library system which allows me to borrow from other library systems in our province – in this case, it was the Annapolis Valley Regional Library that lent me this book.The Shetland Islands seem a romantic setting for a murder that is decidedly unromantic. Cleeves draws the Shetland island community as closed and suspicious of outsiders, as it likely is–much like most other islands around the world.If guilt for this murder has to be pinned on someone local, then simpleton Magnus Tait is the obvious choice. Most people in the community have already decided he was responsible for the disappearance of a young girl eight years previous. But the reader knows Magnus didn’t do it – or did he?The setting is a little bleak, the detective a little low-key, the subject matter a little dark (but not as taut as, say, a Kathy Reichs serial killer novel), but the plot advances steadily and evenly and there are plenty of clues to the identity of the murderer. But, since there’s also plenty of red herrings, it’s unlikely you’ll figure out who it is until the end of the book. Cleeves manages to make nearly everyone in the area appear to be a possible suspect. In my mind, that is one of the marks of a really good mystery. And this is one.I’d like to read the other four books in this series (White Nights, Red Bones, and Blue Lightning). Recommended for mystery fans.A solid four out of five stars.
What do You think about Raven Black (2007)?
I feel like I have been giving 3 star ratings to every "thriller" book I have been reading lately. I just didn't really care for this one. I found the story to drag on and never really felt any suspense at all. It was so slow going that I could skim over paragraphs and still know exactly what was happening without missing anything. The ending sort of picked up a bit, though I still wasn't very excited by it. One thing I did like was how vividly Shetland was described. I could really visualise the place and all the characters. I may read the next one, simply because I did like the setting and the main detective, Jimmy Perez, was ok.
—Rosie
ho, hum. I don't know. I thought I'd be giving this one another star by the end, but it was just so run-of-the-mill. On the cover it says: Raven Black, by Ann Cleves, A THRILLER. I couldn't have been less thrilled. It was a decent mystery set up in a pretty standard style. I guess there was supposed to be a twist at the end, but by then I was so bored that I barely noticed. It wasn't bad, it just wasn't prize-worthy. I guess 2006 was a slow year for mysteries and thrillers, because this one took the Duncan Lawrie Dagger. I think I would have liked this one more ten years ago, when I didn't read very edgy mysteries. It's not a cozy, but it's not at all gritty. A 13 year old could read this book, there are no violent scenes. And though the crimes were violent, they were quick, clean, and direct, and they're only spoken of in the past tense and with the tamest of dialogue. The characters are all very superficial and I never felt like I knew any of them that well. I guess an exception to that could possibly be Magnus. He was an interesting character. I think that's why I hung in and read to the end, because the book starts with Magnus and that character intrigued me. But it was short lived, and never picked up after the first quarter of the book. I'd recommend skipping this one.
—Lisa
It was kind of old school, almost like an Agatha Christie, one of those stories where all the suspects invite the detective into their home and brew him a cup of tea. The only one smart enough to know that you shouldn't talk to the police is the cognitively-challenged, 80 year old, besotted recluse with the talking raven. As with the "Vera" TV series, a big part of the appeal here is the setting. Considering that in real life, there is something like one serious assault charge for every hundred people on the Shetland Islands, and those are probably all punch-ups during Up Helly Aa, whatever that means, this series promises to offer a serious bump in the crime statistics there.
—Benjamin
