The Raven by Mike Nappa - REVIEWED

About the Book:
As part of his street performance, a deception specialist who goes by the name The Raven picks his audience's pockets while they watch. It's harmless fun--until he decides to keep the wallet of a prominent politician, hoping for a few extra bucks. When he finds compromising photos of the councilman and his "personal assistants," The Raven hatches a plan to blackmail the man. However, he quickly finds himself in over his head with the Ukrainian Mafia and mired in a life-threatening plot code-named "Nevermore."

Private investigators Trudi Coffey and Samuel Hill must scramble to sort out the clues to rescue The Raven from a wild card bent on revenge.

My Thoughts:

“This is going to get really messy really soon.”  (p.14)

One of the characters in Mike Nappa’s book, The Raven, is a street magician/petty thug that calls himself by the same moniker.  He is one of three or four characters whose point of view is expressed in alternating chapters.  Nappa alternates point of view and time line throughout the book, but once you get in the rhythm, serves the story well and acts effectively to push the plot along at an ever increasing pace.

I must say this at the outset…don’t ever have anything to do with the Ukranian mob!  They are bad business!  Mobs, gangs, CIA, PI’s….this book has it all.  I was intrigued by the intricacy of how everyone worked together – sometimes knowingly  - sometimes covertly – to achieve a certain end.  I was under a wrong assumption at first – who was on which side of the law – and as the story progressed I still followed a red herring now and again. To me, that is the true litmus test of a mystery series….Nappa is GREAT at misleading the reader only to execute a switchback and take the reader in an entirely new direction!

Trudi and Samuel make the perfect dysfunctional detective duo, and their relationship is both complex and very realistic!  The Raven’s character is sort of compelling, but kind of get-on-your-nerves indecisive and juvenile while also being a sort of street-wise thug.  I also felt a bit sorry that he crossed hairs with some pretty wicked folks, and found myself rooting for his survival toward the end!  There in another key character that I will mention only in passing who keeps this VERY interesting!  Her character switches direction on a dime!!  Follow her carefully!

This was a GREAT read!  I was fully engaged throughout the story, and the characters are very believable and intriguing!  There are lots of things to recommend this book to a very wide audience!! I’m a FAN!

About the Author:

Mike Nappa is an entertainment journalist at FamilyFans.com, as well as a bestselling and award-winning author with more than one million books sold worldwide. When he was a kid, the stories of Edgar Allan Poe scared him silly. Today he owns everything Poe ever wrote. A former fiction acquisitions editor, Mike earned his MA in English literature and now writes full time.