Raven
-
- ¥430
-
- ¥430
発行者による作品情報
A fox in a leg-hold trap may gnaw off its own foot to escape...rats in a too-small cage will devour the weakest members of the pack to ensure survival of the strongest...a group of humans, trapped like animals, will sacrifice anything—or anyone—to gain their freedom....
Imagine Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None: a small group of people trapped in an isolated place, disappearing one by one, prey to all the stresses and strains of being hunted. Add Charles Grant’s proven skill with suspense and his ability to fathom and display the inner workings of the human heart and mind.
The result is Raven, a gripping, fast-paced thriller that begins in a familiar classic American setting—a roadside motel and restaurant —and drives, without pause, to an unexpected and startling conclusion.
A late-winter blizzard has closed the road beside Maclaren’s Food and Lodging. The staff of three—Neil Maclaren, former cop turned motel-keeper; Julia Sanders, as capable handling trouble as she is mixing drinks; Willie Ennin, whose fondness for knives makes him a superb cook—prepare to entertain their few customers through a long winter night, unaware that they are being watched.
The customers are a motley crew. Three locals: Nester Brandt, the town’s greying curmudgeon; and a pair of star-crossed lovers, Ken Hawick and Trish Avery. Three strangers: Hugh Davies, fast-rising star of all-night talk-radio; and Ceil and Mandy, two women he claims are his sisters.
They all have secrets, secrets which have attracted the watcher.
Nester Brandt is the first to die, gunned down outside the restaurant by a silent man in a long black coat, a man whose pitiless gaze is as fixed and glittering as a raven’s.
Nester’s death is only the beginning as this gathering of strangers becomes first prey, then hunters. They have learned too much about each other in a single snow-filled night.
Like rats caught in a trap...
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This smooth, sophisticated and frightening novel from the author of Stunts is set in a backwood motel lounge owned and run by Neil Maclaren, a former state trooper. The random group of people gathered at Maclaren's Food and Lodging on a snowy night to celebrate engagements or rest from a trip to the country expects nothing unusual, not even when a raven is seen watching them. Then a drunken man leaving the bar is shot dead by a man dressed in black, who leaves no tracks in the snow. With all means of escape blocked and the man in black still watching, the customers turn to Neil to save them. When he proves to be no TV cop-show hero, they turn on him and one another, while the man in black waits outside. The eventual supernatural explanation of the events in this superior work of suspense is handled with a light touch reminiscent of Ray Bradbury's. Grant's starkly poetic prose adds atmosphere and style and puts the reader right in the motel lounge with the fully realized characters, feeling fear, hope, anger and despair right along with them.
