Raven’s Grave

In Raven’s Grave, a young boy dies during a midnight ritual. Some blame the youthful shaman and evil spirits for his death. But Jonah St. Clair, Koloshan’s only police officer, recognizes it as murder. At the same time, a native fish buyer goes missing, along with $75,000 in cash. These seemingly unrelated events not only threaten to tear the fragile community apart, one thread of the investigation leads back to something that happened in the Vietnam War. Raven’s Grave is not only a mystery, it’s a story about the collision of past and present in a close-knit community, the power of culture and the complexities of friendship. In the late 1970s, Koloshan’s residents still honor old customs, but the Tlingit language and memories of traditional ways are fading. Increased contact with the outside world is accelerating a cultural shift. Large fiberglass fishing vessels are invading from the south, edging out the small wooden boats of the locals. Village fishermen are torn between their need to compete and their resistance to change. Caught in a slipstream of time, the village has become a curious blend of old and new.Even Officer Jonah St. Clair feels the push and pull of past and present. After a tour in Viet Nam and six years on the LAPD police force, he has returned to Koloshan and is struggling to reconcile his diverse experiences with the cultural isolation of village life. During his investigation, he becomes both prey and predator in a nighttime chase through the Alaskan wilderness and barely survives a rugged boat trip in dangerous waters while pursuing the murderer. In the end, he not only apprehends a killer, he discovers the bittersweet secret of the Raven’s Grave.