Raven's Gate

School Library Journal Review: Gr 9 Up?Matt is in serious trouble. He's been involved in a robbery where a man was stabbed, and he now has to choose between jail or a new program that places juvenile offenders with community members. Suddenly he is moving to Lesser Malling and finding out about his chores on Mrs. Deverill's farm. There is something sinister about his new foster parent and the town. The teen stumbles across a murdered man who disappears by the time he returns with the police, an old broken-down nuclear-reactor plant that hums and glows at night, and suspicious activities at the farm. As things become more and more frightening, Matt is forced to find an ally and try to escape the bodies that are piling up around him and the evil that is taking over Lesser Malling. Horowitz departs from his popular teen spy series and turns up the horror in this first installment in a new series. The creepy activities and the overall atmosphere of fear are well defined, and once the action starts, it doesn't let up. People are stabbed with sickles, dinosaur skeletons return to life to attack Matt and his ally, and the protagonist is subjected to strange spells and potions that keep him from discovering the true reason he has been brought to this remote town. This powerful struggle between good and evil is a real page-turner.?Lynn Evarts, Sauk Prairie High School, Prairie du Sac, WI Copyright ? Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.