Raven's Gate

Raven’s Gate (2005), a young adult novel by British author Anthony Horowitz, is the first installment in his Power of Five series (known in the U.S. as the Gatekeepers series). The novel follows juvenile delinquent Matthew “Matt” Freeman as he becomes entangled in a witches’ plot to blast a portal into another dimension to release demonic forces. Horowitz is the author of the popular Alex Rider novels. Raven’s Gate has also received strong reviews (“thoroughly creepy,” Publishers’ Weekly).

Fourteen-year-old Matt is persuaded by his older friend Kelvin Johnson to help him burgle a warehouse in Ipswich, England. When Kelvin stabs a security guard, Matt tries to help the wounded man. The police arrest both teenagers.

Matt wakes up in his cell. He is extremely thirsty, but as he stares at the jug of water in his cell, he enters a trance state, and the jug explodes. When he wakes up there is no sign of the jug having exploded and he concludes that it was a dream.



Kindly Superintendent Stephen Mallory drafts Matt into the LEAF Project: Liberty and Education Achieved through Fostering. Matt’s new foster carer, Jayne Deverill, is a strict, elderly woman, to whom he takes an instant dislike. He accompanies Jayne to Hive Hall, her Yorkshire home, where he immediately begins to have unsettling experiences. Jayne’s cat bites his hand and Jayne reacts strangely to the sight of his blood. He contracts pneumonia and has a fever dream in which Jayne and another woman cure him with black magic. She sets him to work on her farm, with her laborer Noah, who is silent and menacing.

In the nearby village of Lesser Malling, Matt meets Jayne’s sister, Claire, whom he recognizes from his fever dream. Claire has a disfiguring birthmark, and all the other villagers, too, seem to be disfigured or mentally ill or both. One apparently normal man, Tom Burgess, warns Matt to flee the village.

That same night, Matt is woken by the sound of chanting. As he searches the house for money so he can get away, Jayne’s cat attacks him. He cages it and continues his search. Eventually, he comes across a photograph of himself, aged eight, at his parents’ funeral, and we learn what happened to his parents. They died in a car accident en route to a wedding. Matt had a premonition that they would die and insisted on staying at home. With the photograph, Matt finds a police report identifying him as someone with precognitive powers.



Abandoning his search for money, Matt takes Jayne’s bike. However, every route he takes seems to lead back to Hive Hall.

The next day, Matt encounters Tom Burgess near an old nuclear power station. Matt notices some suspicious activity around the station. Tom tells Matt to come to his house; Tom will help him escape. Tom gives him a pendant inscribed with a key, which he says will allow Matt to escape the labyrinth of roads.

The pendant works, but when Matt arrives at Tom’s farm, Tom is dead, apparently killed by an animal. The words “Raven’s Gate” have been painted on the wall. Matt manages to find a police patrol car, but when they return to the farm, there is no sign of Tom’s body. Instead, two of the sinister villagers are there.



In the town of Greater Malling, Matt searches online for information about “Raven’s Gate.” He receives a pop-up communication from a man named Dravid. Matt asks who he is and he disappears.

Matt meets a local journalist, Richard Cole, but Cole doesn’t believe Matt’s story When Matt storms out of the newspaper’s offices, Jayne is waiting for him.

Jayne tells him that Tom Burgess is not dead, and even calls him on the phone. Matt hears Tom’s voice, but he doesn’t believe her.



Superintendent Mallory arrives at Hive Hall. He is shocked by Matt’s appearance. He accuses Jayne of abusing him and threatens to remove Matt from her care. As he drives back to London, he hears whispering voices on his car radio. He loses control of his car and dies.

Matt follows Jayne and Claire into the woods and witnesses them performing a magical rite. Jayne catches him and summons demonic dogs that chase him through the woods. Richard Cole rescues him. Matt tells Richard that he thinks Jayne is a witch, but Richard only laughs.

Matt and Richard investigate Raven’s Gate. A nuclear scientist, Sir Michael Marsh, tells them that Matt’s suspicions about the nuclear plant are absurd.



Richard tracks down Dravid, a researcher at the British Museum. Dravid tells Matt and Richard the villagers’ secret. Lesser Malling is the site of a gate into a prison dimension, where powerful and evil demons called the Old Ones are trapped. The villagers’ plan is to release the Old Ones by ritually sacrificing Matt.

Dravid is killed when skeletons in the Museum come to life. Jayne captures Matt and Richard and takes them to Malling. Matt kills Noah and escapes. He encounters Sir Michael Marsh, who turns out to be the coven leader. It was Sir Michael’s machinations which ensured the nuclear power plant was built on the site of Raven’s Gate. He takes Matt to the plant to be sacrificed.

As the magic takes effect, Chaos, the King of the Old Ones, appears in the Gate. Realizing he can control his psychic powers, Matt destroys the sacrificial knife in Sir Michael’s hand. He escapes with Richard, who kills Jayne in the process.



The nuclear power plant begins to burn, and the villagers are caught in the flames. Sir Michael has managed to extract a drop of Matt’s blood, which he uses to complete the ritual. Chaos appears and consumes Sir Michael before he is sucked back into his prison.

A society called the Nexus contacts Matt and Richard. They must go to Peru to prevent the opening of another gate.