Call of the raven

Set in the early 1840s, this riveting adventure yarn from bestseller Smith (the Courtney family saga) and Addison (A Harvest of Thorns) explores the slave trade. While studying at Cambridge University in England, Mungo St. John, introduced in 1980's A Falcon Flies, receives a letter from Camilla, a slave on his father's Virginia plantation, Windemere, saying that his father is dead. "Come home at once or we will all be lost," she writes. Mungo, his father's only heir, arrives in America to find Windemere in the hands of family attorney Chester Marion, who betrayed the trust of his father and led the elder St. John into bankruptcy. Mungo vows revenge. The stakes rise after Camilla falls into Chester's clutches and Chester falsely accuses Mungo of stealing a slave. Mungo has no choice but to jump bail and join the crew of a merchant ship bound for the slave markets of Africa and Havana. From there he travels to New Orleans and then to Virginia, unswerving in his desire to destroy Chester. As Mungo races from one hair-raising situation to the next, he pulls the reader breathlessly along. Those who like nonstop if melodramatic action will be rewarded. Agent: Kevin Conroy Scott, Tibor James & Assoc. (U.K.). (Apr.)