Mathew Freeman has always been a little bit different from everyone else. When he was eight years old, his parents died in a car accident that he was also supposed to be in; but he was not in the car because he refused to, somehow know exactly how and when the accident would happen. Since then he has been living with his aunt in Ipswich. He and his friend Kelvin have been getting in trouble, yet they make another excursion to a warehouse that stores DVDs, CDs, Gameboys, and MP3 players. They break in and start stealing everything in sight until the police catch them.

          Matt is given a choice, go to jail for three years, or go live with an old woman called Mrs. Deverill in the remote town of Lesser Malling. Unbeknownst to him, the old woman and the townspeople are trying to open a place called Raven’s Gate. All he knows about Raven’s Gate is that it is pure evil, but no one has heard of Raven’s Gate, and everyone that tries to help him ends up dead. He is trapped with the old lady with no way out until he is able to escape to Greater Malling and get help from Richard Cole, a journalist of a small time newspaper. It will take wits and cunning to stop Raven’s Gate from opening and unleashing evil upon the world once again.

      Although there are few main characters in this book, they are amazing. Matt is inventive, the evil witch, Mrs. Deverill, is wise and cunning, and all of the other characters are brave in their struggle to help Matt stop the gate from opening. Raven’s Gate is aimed at readers that are 11 or older because of the violence that occurs in it. This book begins by getting the reader’s curiosity aroused and has the reader asking him/herself why the two friends are breaking into the warehouse, and what their lives have been like so far. After Matt arrives at Mrs. Deverill’s house, the story picks up the pace and doesn’t slow down. There are more questions to be answered as things get interesting, and the reader will be asking a lot more questions since the story began. This book is one of those rare finds for science fiction fans and fantasy readers because it combines magic with technology. Anthony Horowitz is an excellent author and I hope that the next book in the series is just as good, if not better, than this one. I give this book an A+. 

~ Stelios Theophanous, Boardman High School, Grade 10