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Some believe that Edgar Allan Poe left cryptic messages and prophesies in his writings, that he stared into the dark void and went mad from the visions he saw there. In author Solomon Jones’s The Gravedigger’s Ball, the plot is centered on “The Raven”—a poem about a raven, which is also a symbol of death.
In a previous case, Detective Mike Coletti fell in love with a woman who turned out to be a serial killer, which nearly cost him his life before he ended hers. While he’s trying to work through the pain and betrayal, her half-sister, Lenore Wilkinson, pops up in his life and becomes the target of a murderer who’s obsessed with a poem written by Edgar Allan Poe.
The newspapers dub the killer “The Gravedigger”—because he digs the victim’s grave before going after the kill, and a raven shows up whenever he strikes. He’s bent on finding the secret of life and death, and he’s not the only one.
As Coletti works with Lenore to protect her and unravel the clues—hoping to find the killer before he finds her—he tries to convince himself that Lenore is nothing like her half-sister. Still, he’s not yet willing to completely trust again.
In The Gravedigger’s Ball Jones stirs in a little bit of the gothic, which adds a hint of spookiness to this crime novel. He also blends in the theme of loss, as well as the darkness that we all face at some point in our lives.
Since The Gravedigger’s Ball pretty much picks up where Jones’s previous Mike Coletti novel, The Last Confession, left off, I didn’t really get a feel for the characters—and I didn’t feel as involved with them—as I might have if I’d read The Last Confession first. I did, however, identify with Lenore, a woman who’s lost the attention of her husband and is struggling to get it back—or just walk away.
With all of its twists and surprises, The Gravedigger’s Ball will keep you engrossed and fascinated by the plot and its underlying theme involving the works of Edgar Allan Poe. It’s sure to give you a delicious, creepy thrill, all wrapped in a string of captivating murders.
