Raven: The Untold Story of the Rev. Jim Jones and His People

The basis for the upcoming HBO miniseries and the "definitive account of the Jonestown massacre" (Rolling Stone) -- now available for the first time in paperback.

Tim Reiterman’s Raven provides the seminal history of the Rev. Jim Jones, the Peoples Temple, and the murderous ordeal at Jonestown in 1978.

This PEN Award–winning work explores the ideals-gone-wrong, the intrigue, and the grim realities behind the Peoples Temple and its implosion in the jungle of South America. Reiterman’s reportage clarifies enduring misperceptions of the character and motives of Jim Jones, the reasons why people followed him, and the important truth that many of those who perished at Jonestown were victims of mass murder rather than suicide.

This widely sought work is restored to print after many years with a new preface by the author, as well as the more than sixty-five rare photographs from the original volume.

Tim Reiterman is a prizewinning journalist who extensively covered Jonestown for the San Francisco Examiner. He was wounded in the Guyanese jungle airstrip attack that killed a U.S. congressman, plus three reporters, and a Peoples Temple defector. A longtime writer and editor at the Los Angeles Times, Reiterman worked for the past eight years as Northern California News Editor for the Associated Press and now heads AP’s global environmental reporting team. Reiterman originally published Raven in 1982. His collaborator John Jacobs was a widely respected journalist who died in 2000