The Ravening Deep is Tim Pratt's first contribution to the Arkham Horror novels franchise, but he has written short-form Yog-Sothothery before, among which I have read and enjoyed the 2008 "Dude Who Collected Lovecraft," co-authored with Nick Mamatas and reprinted in Paula Guran's New Cthulhu anthology. Pratt is evidently not a New Englander, as he mentions the "coast of Vermont" in passing (229).

The story features a team of protagonists, with the most central of them being Diana Stanley, who has been established in the game milieu as "the redeemed cultist." This book affords an alternate account of Diana's time in the Silver Twilight Lodge, previously treated in the Arkham Horror novel Feeders from Within. On a couple of occasions, another character refers to Diana with the name "Stanfield" (e.g. 282), which seems to be just sloppy or nonexistent proofreading.

Regular readers of Cthulhvian fiction might assume from the title and the seafaring character Abel Davenport that this novel has something to do with the Deep Ones, such as those associated with Innsmouth, but these are very peripheral to the story, and actually opposed to the chief menace indicated in the book's title. The title refers to "the Ravening Deep, The Hungry Star, That Which Divided Multiplies, and the Infinite Maw, among other appellations" (208). The cult around this being has an excellent frisson of inhumanity and paranoia, like that of The Invasion of the Body Snatchers or "The Whisperer in Darkness."

There is a significant role for the Silver Twilight Lodge of Arkham and its leader Carl Sanford. He has appeared as a villain of greater or lesser remoteness in other Arkham Horror fiction, but in this book he is more ambiguous. Diana certainly sees him as a menace, but he does forgive her insubordination, and he collaborates with her and the other heroes for at least part of the story. I enjoyed the level of detail given to goings-on in the lodge here, along with the appearance of the Lodge Guardian Sarah Van Shaw, a character who featured as one of my favorite cards in Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game.

Another character who becomes part of Diana's team is the thief Ruby Standish. She appeared in the old Arkham Horror board game (second edition) and Elder Sign, but not yet in more recent Arkham Files games.

The pacing of the book is fast, all twenty-three chapters of which took me only a few days to read. There is plenty of fan gratification for players of the Arkham Files games, along with a well-contained adventure of occult menace in Lovecraft country. It's not a sophisticated literary work, but it is the sort of perfectly palatable genre fodder that the Arkham Horror imprint should lead readers to expect.