"For the first time in her life, Doll Jacobs tastes fear. She and a hundred children, her own mother and a few parents from their London neighborhood are taken hostage at a church opera rehearsal. The gun at Doll's head is held by a woman who comes from another world, another morality. /// Four revolutionaries have bungled their attempt to kidnap the young son of the ambassador of a small South American country. His bodyguard, Doll's friend, lies wounded outside in the street. The child's disguise is discovered and the revolutionaries begin a terrible game. The morality of art and politics is put on mock trial; Doll and her mother and every person in the vast church are forced to judge their own values. /// Peter Dickinson, winner of the Carnegie Medal and Whitbread Award, challenges his readers with a stimulating, timely thriller."

"PETER DICKINSON has written the librettos of several operas, produced them -- and has had to build the stage as well. his experience in children's opera sets the background for The Seventh Raven. The events are fictitious, yet so chillingly real they could have happened. /// Peter Dickinson is the author of Tulku, which won the Carnegie Medal and the Whitbread Award, and many other novels including The Blue Hawk, The Weathermonger (both Atlantic-Little, Brown), and a collection of original Bible tales, City of Gold (Pantheon). He lives in a London neighborhood much like the Jacobs' and in a country house at Hants."