Ravens: a novel

✍ Scribed by George Dawes Green

• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
• Year: 2009
• Tongue: en-US
• Weight: 154 KB
• Category: Fiction
• City: Brunswick (Ga.);New York;NY;Georgia;Brunswick
• ISBN: 1599957566
• ASIN: B002EBDOW4

✦ Synopsis

The Boatwrights just won 318 million dollars in the Georgia State lottery. It's going to be the worst day of their lives.

When Shaw McBride and Romeo Zderko pull up at a convenience store off I-95 in Georgia, their only thought is to fix a leaky tire and be on their way again to Florida-away from their dull Ohio tech-support jobs. But this happens to be the store from which a 318,000,000 million dollar Jackpot ticket has just been sold -- and when a pretty clerk accidentally reveals to Shaw the identity of the winning family, he hatches a ferociously audacious scheme: He and Romeo will squeeze the family for half their prize.

That night, he visits the Boatwright home and takes the family hostage, while Romeo patrols the streets nearby, prepared to murder the Boatwrights' loved ones at any sign of resistance. At first, the family offers none. But Shaw's plot depends on maintaining constant fear-merciless, unfaltering terror-and soon, under the pressure, everyone's sanity begins to unravel . . .

At once frightening, comic, and suspenseful, RAVENS is a wholly original and utterly compelling novel from one of our most talented writers.

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Soon after Mitch and Patsy Boatwright, two down-home one-step-above-poor-white Georgians, win the $318 million Max-a-Million jackpot in this stellar thriller from bestseller Green (The Juror), they receive two unwelcome visitors—Shaw McBride and Romeo Zderko, who are fleeing nowhere techie jobs in Ohio for a never-never Florida dream. Shaw, the brains, and Romeo, his half-unwilling brawny pawn, threaten to kill the Boatwrights' loved ones unless the couple agree to hand over half their winnings. Through rapidly shifting points of view, especially the clear eyes of daughter Tara Boatwright, a community college student, Green frighteningly and unequivocally shows how victims can come to adore their tormentors, amid a mix of madness, fear, isolation, greed and delusions of power and glory. This exquisite novel of psychological suspense builds to a devastating resolution that will leave readers with the cold shudders for a long time afterward. (July)
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From Booklist

Shaw and Romeo, friends from grade school to their present-day labors in dead-end tech-support jobs, are headed for a Florida vacation. In a Georgia convenience store, Shaw learns from a clerk that a local family purchased a lottery ticket worth $318 million, and he hatches a plan to get half of it. His plan is simple: Shaw takes the family “hostage” by telling them that Romeo is driving around their small city, ready to murder their loved ones if they don’t support the ruse that Shaw is due half the winnings. As news of the family’s big win spreads, crowds throng around the house, and the terror inside it grows. Green, the author of the acclaimed The Caveman’s Valentine (2000), is skilled at psychological suspense. More than half a dozen major characters are fully developed, and their evolving reactions to their situations and to other characters are sure to engage readers who like to feel the narrative screws tightening. --Thomas Gaughan

✦ Subjects

Adult