with an appreciation by Ken Bruen
1/70 signed limited (15 deluxe)
No apologies for selecting a new author to the Scorpion list. R J Ellory writes clever and audacious crime thrillers set in the United States. They are unlike any penned by his contemporaries - rich in life at the sharp end, while showing more than an acquaintance with the power that comes from the contours that overlap between the old dime novel and modern literary fiction.
Ellory was a slow-burner until a popular British daytime show selected his novel with the uncanny title of A Quiet Belief in Angels. It has now sold 300,000 copies in Britain alone and has been translated into an additional twenty-one languages. Nominated for the Barry Award, the European Du Point, The Quebec Booksellers’ Prize and the 813 Trophy, it duly won the important Inaugural Prix Roman Noir Nouvel Observateur in France (where it was short-listed against Dennis Lehane, James Lee Burke, Don Winslow and Carl Hiaasen). The award recognised thrillers that have some merit as social critique and relevance, and the aforementioned list all usually display such merits. It also generated positive feedback from a string of well known writers including Michael Connelly, Jonathan Kellerman, James Patterson, Val McDermid, and the author of literary espionage stories, Alan Furst.
The growing buzz got to inventive Irish crime novelist Ken Bruen who rates Angels as one of the best he has ever read. In his appreciation Bruen tells us why Ellory is such an extraordinary writer.
When I began to read The Anniversary Man one had the feeling that the author is both assured with the suspense thriller form and at delivering a good measure of satisfaction to the discerning reader. The darker passages reminded me a little of Capote, while the humour and vignettes of speech that reveal character put me in mind of the prose of Tennessee Williams. It’s a novel with several plot lines, which begin with a vicious random attack on young courting couples in the mid 1980s. The survivor, John Costello, twenty years later is a researcher for a newspaper investigating a similar pattern of crimes. His personal struggle and ongoing attempts to find peace and contentment are simulated in other minor characters. Thus, as in the prose of Williams and other American greats, the cast of characters and dialogue pick up on each other and reverberate throughout.
Ellory - many believe - is going to be the one to follow.
Reserve your copy by pressing the button below, then select the title. Due mid September, 2009. $150 USD / £68 GBP
