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Raven On the Water
Back in 1964, Peter Redburn and his best friend Richard had spent a golden summer holiday playing out their special game – a private world of secret rituals and oaths of loyalty sworn for eternity. It was all very innocent - until James and Kate joined in . . . And then, one night, their childish game turned to tragedy . . . Now an adult, Peter has never been able to escape his own feelings of guilt about the events that summer. So when he stumbles across a hoard of childhood memories, he knows he must search out the truth. And with a funeral bringing all participants together again, bitter rivalries and sordid secrets are about to be unearthed.
503 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published April 5, 2007
86 people want to read
About the author
Andrew Taylor
61 books731 followersAndrew Taylor (b. 1951) is a British author of mysteries. Born in East Anglia, he attended university at Cambridge before getting an MA in library sciences from University College London. His first novel, Caroline Miniscule (1982), a modern-day treasure hunt starring history student William Dougal, began an eight-book series and won Taylor wide critical acclaim. He has written several other thriller series, most notably the eight Lydmouthbooks, which begin with An Air That Kills (1994).
His other novels include The Office of the Dead (2000) and The American Boy (2003), both of which won the Crime Writers’ Association of Britain’s Ellis Peters Historical Dagger award, making Taylor the only author to receive the prize twice. His Roth trilogy, which has been published in omnibus form as Requiem for an Angel (2002), was adapted by the UK’s ITV for its television show Fallen Angel. Taylor’s most recent novel is the historical thriller The Scent of Death (2013).
His other novels include The Office of the Dead (2000) and The American Boy (2003), both of which won the Crime Writers’ Association of Britain’s Ellis Peters Historical Dagger award, making Taylor the only author to receive the prize twice. His Roth trilogy, which has been published in omnibus form as Requiem for an Angel (2002), was adapted by the UK’s ITV for its television show Fallen Angel. Taylor’s most recent novel is the historical thriller The Scent of Death (2013).
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
May 4, 2018
This is probably the least good of the Andrew Taylor books I hav read to date, in my opinion. It is very middle class, and I did not empathise with any of the characters. The older female characters are, I think, a bit difficult to differentiate, given their different relationship in the past and the present. The background story of the boys’ game based on Ancient Rome was a bit over elaborate. Overall a bit disappointing.
July 21, 2019
A mystery that didn’t grab me.
February 18, 2021
Another elegantly plotted and nicely observed mystery by Andrew Taylor, exploring how childhood experiences reverberate through adult life.
October 18, 2025
The author described a character from this book, Ginny Salperton, whilst they were reading Mansfield Park, as being both trapped and bored by the book. I know how she felt. This book was awful. Truly depressing.
I had been made aware that this was a reissue, as the original book was out of print, perhaps, and I very much wish, that it should have remained that way, for it would have saved me several days worth of melancholy and misery, reading about the spoilt, self centered, tiresomely routine, middle class lives of a group of people, that were so boring and had so little to do, that they played out a 'game' that they used to enact as children, or at least, the main protagonist, Peter Redburn did and everything else just tediously fell in and around this one premise. A role play game they called 'Emor' (Rome backwards). A scenario that was so preposterous, I'll admit, I almost immediately began to switch off and with an exasperated sigh and a roll of my eyes, I prepared myself for a snoozefest of middle class angst that I had no earthly chance of empathizing with. To no degree could I sympathise with someone whom was troubled by the outcome of a childhood game, Jesus wept! I have trouble remembering the names of family members, (if I'm addressing one of my granddaughters, I go through the whole gamut of family names before I eventually hit on the right one, haha) let alone what happened in bloody games I used to play as a child!
There was a thriller quietly hidden in the background of this absurd tale, but it was so drowned out by the ludicrous middle class nonsense, that you would hardly notice it was there at all.
Even the ONE interesting character, from the ONE interesting sidebar story line, a gay rocker called Frank Timball whom had been embroiled in the fights between Mods and Rockers that summer, and although he was a good few years older than the rest of the children, he still managed to get himself wrapped up into the game of Emor, but that was only because he fancied the brother of the afore mentioned Ginny Salperton, James Salperton. And that, ladies and gentlemen, was basically the entire crux of this book, that literally everyone wanted to get into everyone else's pants! Right down to the final big reveal motive for the book's surreptitious murders. Someone wanting to shag someone else.
The timeline was also all over the shop. It jumped back and forth continuously from subchapter to subchapter, from the book's present day, to the sixties and seventies completely willy-nilly, with absolutely no hint it was in another era till you were actually upon and in it. This rendered the book highly confusing and just added to the already depressing state of affairs that surrounded this utter mess of a story.
This book could've been called, 'How to Get Away With Murder’, well, the author, Andrew Taylor certainly did! Or alternatively it could have been called, 'How to Write A Bloody God Awful Book!' A complete and utter waste of paper. Booooo!!!
I had been made aware that this was a reissue, as the original book was out of print, perhaps, and I very much wish, that it should have remained that way, for it would have saved me several days worth of melancholy and misery, reading about the spoilt, self centered, tiresomely routine, middle class lives of a group of people, that were so boring and had so little to do, that they played out a 'game' that they used to enact as children, or at least, the main protagonist, Peter Redburn did and everything else just tediously fell in and around this one premise. A role play game they called 'Emor' (Rome backwards). A scenario that was so preposterous, I'll admit, I almost immediately began to switch off and with an exasperated sigh and a roll of my eyes, I prepared myself for a snoozefest of middle class angst that I had no earthly chance of empathizing with. To no degree could I sympathise with someone whom was troubled by the outcome of a childhood game, Jesus wept! I have trouble remembering the names of family members, (if I'm addressing one of my granddaughters, I go through the whole gamut of family names before I eventually hit on the right one, haha) let alone what happened in bloody games I used to play as a child!
There was a thriller quietly hidden in the background of this absurd tale, but it was so drowned out by the ludicrous middle class nonsense, that you would hardly notice it was there at all.
Even the ONE interesting character, from the ONE interesting sidebar story line, a gay rocker called Frank Timball whom had been embroiled in the fights between Mods and Rockers that summer, and although he was a good few years older than the rest of the children, he still managed to get himself wrapped up into the game of Emor, but that was only because he fancied the brother of the afore mentioned Ginny Salperton, James Salperton. And that, ladies and gentlemen, was basically the entire crux of this book, that literally everyone wanted to get into everyone else's pants! Right down to the final big reveal motive for the book's surreptitious murders. Someone wanting to shag someone else.
The timeline was also all over the shop. It jumped back and forth continuously from subchapter to subchapter, from the book's present day, to the sixties and seventies completely willy-nilly, with absolutely no hint it was in another era till you were actually upon and in it. This rendered the book highly confusing and just added to the already depressing state of affairs that surrounded this utter mess of a story.
This book could've been called, 'How to Get Away With Murder’, well, the author, Andrew Taylor certainly did! Or alternatively it could have been called, 'How to Write A Bloody God Awful Book!' A complete and utter waste of paper. Booooo!!!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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July 6, 2008The Raven on the Water, by Andrew Taylor, B-plus. Narrated by Cornelius Garrett, produced by BBC Audio, downloaded from audible.com.
This is a stand-alone. It involves three families who are totally and almost incestuously entertwined. We have Kate and Richard; James and Ginnie; and we have Peter. These kids played together, invented a game, something like Dunces and Dragons, and entertained themselves more and more in their own world. Then the boys threesome is broken up when James introduces Kate into their play. Richard is becoming more and more disenchanted with James and his games. Peter is jealous because he’s attracted to Kate, and Kate and James seem to be attracted to each other. Then there is a tragic accident and Richard is killed. But as the children grow up, Peter starts to believe that James engineered Richard’s death. He is asked by James to write his biography, and he begins working with James on the book. He takes the opportunity to look into the diaries they kept as children, and learns some interesting things. As time goes on he, with information he’s getting from Kate, becomes more convinced that James is trying to kill Kate and him, Peter. Things come to a climax. But were the deaths in the book accidental? And, if not, is James the one really to blame? And will anyone know the truth? A very haunting book that makes you feel claustrophobic because everyone is so entertwined.
This is a stand-alone. It involves three families who are totally and almost incestuously entertwined. We have Kate and Richard; James and Ginnie; and we have Peter. These kids played together, invented a game, something like Dunces and Dragons, and entertained themselves more and more in their own world. Then the boys threesome is broken up when James introduces Kate into their play. Richard is becoming more and more disenchanted with James and his games. Peter is jealous because he’s attracted to Kate, and Kate and James seem to be attracted to each other. Then there is a tragic accident and Richard is killed. But as the children grow up, Peter starts to believe that James engineered Richard’s death. He is asked by James to write his biography, and he begins working with James on the book. He takes the opportunity to look into the diaries they kept as children, and learns some interesting things. As time goes on he, with information he’s getting from Kate, becomes more convinced that James is trying to kill Kate and him, Peter. Things come to a climax. But were the deaths in the book accidental? And, if not, is James the one really to blame? And will anyone know the truth? A very haunting book that makes you feel claustrophobic because everyone is so entertwined.
September 22, 2016
This author's style is similar to that of British mystery author Robert Goddard. Like Goddard, Taylor is a real story teller, taking great pains with plot and character detail, and his protagonist is an amateur sleuth whose circumstances dictate the need to investigate something that would never come to the attention of authorities.
The story is long and involved, and in fact seems to drag on at times. It probably could have been shortened a bit with the same effect. Character development is very good and the setting goes very effectively back and forth between two time periods, relating change over time in the lives of the main characters. This story doesn't take as many twists and turns as it could have, but there is a surprise ending (which I managed to figure out just before it became obvious). While this is not a suspense-filled story, it's worth the effort if you like long, plodding, detailed British mysteries.
This novel was originally published in 1991 (I believe I saw somewhere that it had a different title originally). This and two of the author's other three stand-alone novels, The Barred Window and A Stain on the Silence, were republished in 2007 by Penguin. The author also has two British detective series.
The story is long and involved, and in fact seems to drag on at times. It probably could have been shortened a bit with the same effect. Character development is very good and the setting goes very effectively back and forth between two time periods, relating change over time in the lives of the main characters. This story doesn't take as many twists and turns as it could have, but there is a surprise ending (which I managed to figure out just before it became obvious). While this is not a suspense-filled story, it's worth the effort if you like long, plodding, detailed British mysteries.
This novel was originally published in 1991 (I believe I saw somewhere that it had a different title originally). This and two of the author's other three stand-alone novels, The Barred Window and A Stain on the Silence, were republished in 2007 by Penguin. The author also has two British detective series.
December 7, 2010
Another reissue of an out-of-print early nineties Taylor. I hope there are more out of print reissues coming!
This one is mostly a story of what happened to a group of children, mainly 12ish year olds, in the summer of 1964. The summer is being looked back on from the "present day" (ie 1990ish I guess). One of the children died at the end of the summer and one of the other children, as a grown up, is wondering what really happened.
Both the children and their parents appear in two versions - one 25 years older than the other. The thing that made the book for me was how well drawn the characters were and how the characters themselves and the relationships between them had changed over the years. The plot itself - and the involved imaginary game of the children - I didn't think was so hot but overall I enjoyed the book because the characters were so convincing.
March 28, 2010
Andrew Taylor really does have a flair for mystery. This story is told in two time periods as two generations of the characters look back on events in the past. At first I found it a little hard to work out the complex relationships and I feel a cast of characters may have helped. But once I understood the tangled ties that brought the characters together, I couldn't put the book down. Highly recommended.
February 28, 2011
As a crime mystery I loved this one it tied together the nostalgia of the middle class/public school type mystery with current day. One of his best I think. A life style completely alien to me as a child but I still love reading it!
May 23, 2015
Very well written and engaging book, but I did guess the mystery long in advance, and that can't be good when you read a mystery.
July 31, 2011
Not my favourite Andrew Taylor, a little too slow moving for me.
March 4, 2014
Didn't really grab me. And I guessed the ending. Still it was something different to read and the style was a change but slow in parts
March 16, 2014
Did not care for this book at all. Found the characters strange and uninteresting. Quit 1/3 way through and skimmed the rest.
April 6, 2014
Very confusing and I lost track a couple of times. Not a keeper though but I did finish my knitted summer top while listening.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews