R.J. Ellory's A Simple Act of Violence, his third novel published in America by The Overlook Press, will go on sale this Thursday, June 2. Nominated for a Barry Award and winner of the 2010 Theakston’s Prize for Best Crime Novel of the Year in the U.K., A Simple Act of Violence is an explosive and soaring new novel.
And the praise is pouring in:
“Ellory is back with an amazing new novel. It’s not only a mystery with enough plot twists to keep the most jaded fan of the genre guessing, it’s also a high-speed car chase of a thriller. This is a superbly entertaining book and one that will endure in the reader’s thoughts long after the last page turns. After several fine novels, it’s high time R.J. Ellory takes his rightful place on crime fiction’s A-list. - Booklist (starred review)
“Impressive prose and pacing, coupled with a grim, unflinching view of reality that James Ellroy would recognize, make this a must-read for noir fans.” – Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Although R.J. Ellory's A Simple Act of Violence is set in Washington, D.C., just a few years ago, it really concerns the battles of an earlier era. A series of brutal murders draws a homicide detective into a shadow world involving a secret government agency, numerous federal and civic officials, and a scheme to hide acts tied to U.S. involvement in Nicaragua in the 1980s. A police procedural thus shape-shifts into a conspiracy thriller and a historical exposé. . . There are powerful scenes and vivid images in A Simple Act of Violence, which begs comparison with the work of such writers as Charles McCarry and Richard Condon." - The Wall Street Journal
"A Simple Act of Violence is a masterful exercise in suspense that keeps unfolding and taking the reader to unexpected places. This one will keep you up late reading, and then you won't sleep." – John Lutz
"There is something for everyone in A Simple Act of Violence, although the less sophisticated and uninformed readers in the realm of historical politics may tend to get lost in the backstory. That aside, this crime thriller will delight the palate of lovers of political intrigue in international venues, events that ring of historical truth, bringing the action closer to the realm of real life." - New York Journal of Books
R.J. Ellory's new thriller The Anniversary Man is now in bookstores, and drawing widespread attention from critics and fans alike:
“This is one of those police-procedural gems that come along once in a blue moon. The book is entirely free of the tired formulas that drive way too many procedurals and that often seem more oriented toward securing movie rights than telling a story. And what a story this is! NYPD Detective Ray Irving—overworked, underpaid, and absolutely dedicated to his job—risks his code of ethics and, ultimately, his life to track down a serial killer who is imitating the crimes of some of the worst monsters our society has spawned. . . .although Ellory is widely acclaimed in his native Britain, his books have not yet received widespread distribution in the U.S. Following A Quiet Belief in Angels (2009), this could be the one to put his name in lights in this country. Expect his name to be on every crime-fiction fan’s lips in short order.” –Booklist (starred review)
“Ellory’s gripping thriller should appeal to lovers of procedurals and may also draw readers of true crime, as it deals with many actual serial killings. -Library Journal
“Set in New York City, The Anniversary Man is the ultimate killer thriller, chronicling the case of a deranged but highly intelligent murderer who kills on the anniversary dates of famous serial murders from the past. Each subsequent slaying eerily copycats another infamous death--all faithfully replicating precise details of previous homicides. From electrifying start to shocking conclusion, this thriller affirms the genius that is R.J. Ellory. Britain's phenom author has achieved the status of world-class writer.” – Dean Murphy, International Thriller Writers
“John Costello survived the Hammer of God killings in 1984. His girlfriend did not. Ever since then, John has become obsessed with the why. Why do serial killers do what they do? What made him and Nadia a target? Why did he survive? He’s devoted his career to their study and is the only one to draw a connection between a recent series of murders in New York. When Detective Ray Irving is alerted to the fact that these seemingly random crimes are all exact copies of previous serial killers’ scenes, he is assigned as lead in the investigation. But the department wants to keep this one quiet and Irving will need Costello’s help to try and catch the killer before he strikes again. The Anniversary Man is just Ellory’s second release here in the States (he has seven titles available in the UK) and he’s quickly cementing himself as one of my favorites in the crime genre. His stories are dark and disturbing, his plots keep you guessing, and they never end quite like you think they will.” - Becky Lejeune, Bookbitch.com
“Thank you Overlook for keeping me up till 2 am last night. READ IT! I can't say anything more. I have to get back to it now.....full review to follow, but let's just say it's as good as A Quiet Belief in Angels but with that sense of eerie foreboding ratcheted up even higher. Is that possible? – Murder, Mystery, and Mayhem
“The Anniversary Man was an engrossing read, and I highly recommend it. Put aside your doubts about the serial killer thing-you
Coming soon is R.J. Ellory's The Anniversary Man, a new thriller from the author of A Quiet Belief in Angels. Fran Lewis of Bookpleasures.com offers an advance preview:
"John Costello is 16 years old and has his whole life ahead of him. Working hard in school and helping out in his father’s store he was a typical teenager enjoying life. In walks Nadia McGowan and his whole world changed. Getting to know her and developing strong feelings is normal when you are 16 years old. What does happen as a result of this relationship is anything but normal. It is tragic. After getting to know each other John and Nadia decide to meet at the beach to discuss that she is leaving to study art in New York City. The events of that afternoon will imbed themselves in John’s mind and forever scar him not only physically but mentally as well. “ I am the Hammer of God, “ he stated as he came upon the young couple and lifted his hammer killing Nadia and critically injuring John. This brings me to my review of a riveting thriller,
The Anniversary Man by author RJ Ellory.
Twenty-two years later the unthinkable happens. A string of what appears at first random murders targeting teenagers plague the police department in NYC. Several murders are committed and appear unrelated, but are they. John Costello, 22 years later is a crime researcher for the New York Herald working for Senior Crime Correspondent Karen Langley. Detective Ray Irving is assigned these cases and is determined to solve these murders before they become cold and the killer gets away. Karen Langley will do anything to put roadblocks in his way when she barrels into his life demanding answers and threatening to run the story about the serial killings. Along with John Costello they begin to uncover the pieces that might tie all of these killings together.
Most people celebrate wedding anniversaries, anniversaries of when they first met or the first time they went to a dance with that certain someone, but few celebrate the anniversaries of murder. Our murderer, dubbed the Anniversary Man does just that. New York City is playing host to a serial killer who is committing these murders on the exact date using the same method and manner of earlier murders. This murderer is copying murders of people who were on death row that have been executed. He is killing and targeting teenagers and what brings this home to John Costello is the memory of the murder of his girlfriend 22 years before by the Hammer Of God killer who this present day killer mimicked the murder of Mia Grant.
Detective Ray Irving is determined to find out how John Costello was able to link all of the murders together. Finding out about his past and learning a little about his present made him suspicious of him. John Costello a relative recluse that belongs to the Winterbourne club a group who meets weekly to discuss serial murder cases. Irving is on quest to find the killer and Costello might be his only source to help him succeed. With John’s researching expertise and his connections, Detective Ray Irving begins the insurmountable job of trying to connect all of these murders before the body count rises. Ray Irving and John Costello along with Karen Langley form a bond to bring this man to justice forever changing all of their lives.
This extrem
R. J. Elllory's A Quiet Belief in Angels has been nominated for the Dilys Award, named for Dilys Winn (the founder of Murder Ink) and given out annually by the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association to “the mystery title of the year which the member booksellers have most enjoyed selling.” The contenders for books published in 2009 are:
• The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, by Alan Bradley (Delacorte)
• A Quiet Belief in Angels, by R.J. Ellory (Overlook)
• The Dark Horse, by Craig Johnson (Viking)
• The Girl Who Played with Fire, by Steig Larsson (Knopf)
• The Ghosts of Belfast, by Stuart Neville (Soho)
• The Brutal Telling, by Louise Penny (Minotaur)
• The Shanghai Moon, by S.J. Rozan (Minotaur)
The winner will be announced during this year’s Left Coast Crime convention in Los Angeles, March 11-14.
On the list of FlashlightWorthy's Best Crime Fiction of 2009 is R.J. Ellory's A Quiet Belief in Angels: "There's immense pleasure to be found in a novel that's a touch of class; one that raises the bar. In 2009, the USA struck gold with A Quiet Belief in Angels, the first publication from UK-based R. J. Ellory with The Overlook Press. There’s more to come and indeed a backlist to be read, but A Quiet Belief in Angels is worthy of note.
One sentence in this novel sums it up perfectly, as imparted by its narrator, Joseph Calvin Vaughan: "It was a life, but so distant from what I’d wished."
A Quiet Belief in Angels is the story of the life of Joseph Vaughan and how much of his life is stolen away, how parts of the lives of others are stolen around him, and how lives are taken through the simple act of murder. The story is one superbly told, with great intelligence; the characterization and cultural settings are as deep and rich as a tapestry; the historical context reads as precise as a carefully researched academic tome. But what, above all, keeps you reading? It is the story that Joseph Calvin Vaughan has to tell you. And what a remarkable story it is."
Julie Rose reviews R.J. Ellory's thriller A Quiet Belief in Angels in the current issue of Historical Novels Review: "A Quiet Belief in Angels follows narrator Joseph Vaughan, an author, who recounts the story of his life, from his time as a child in rural Georgia in the early 1940s to a hot, dark hotel room in 1960s New York City, where we learn that Joseph has just shot a man. Previously published in over 20 languages and a bestseller in the UK, A Quiet Belief in Angels is the first of Ellory’s books to be available in the US. In a series of flashbacks and flash forwards, Joseph tells the story of his life, wreathed in heartache and tragedy, defined by a series of child mutilations and murders in his own hometown. When he finally escapes Georgia and moves to New York City to chase his dream of becoming a writer, he finds that has not escaped, and that tragedy and death itself has followed him. Ellory renders mid-20th century America convincingly, with a good sense of place and time, through both description and realistic dialogue. That said, while the Georgia sections ring particularly true, the Manhattan passages suffer from too many historical details shoe-horned in. However, those quibbles are minor. This is a gripping mystery, beautifully written."
Listen to R.J. Ellory discuss his sensational thriller A Quiet Belief in Angels on Book Talk with Stephen Usery, WYPL's terrific author interview program in Memphis.
R.J. Ellory’s masterful and riveting novel has drawn widespread praise since its American publication in September 2009. Already an international bestseller that has been translated in 22 languages, A Quiet Belief in Angels is an unforgettable page-turner. Looking ahead to next year, Overlook is proud to announce the June 2010 publication of a new novel by R.J. Elllory, The Anniversary Man.
Thanks to everyone who attended last night's "thrilling" evening with Overlook authors Peter Quinn, Laura Joh Rowland, and R.J. Ellory. And a very special thanks to Kristin, Jordan, Esther, and all the staff at The Center for Fiction for their gracious welcome.
The
Mercantile Library Center for Fiction was founded in 1820 by merchants and their clerks before the advent of public libraries. By the mid-nineteenth century, it was thriving as one of the foremost cultural institutions in the United States, with an extraordinary collection of books in the humanities, and a popular lecture program that featured such renowned speakers as William Makepeace Thackeray, Frederick Douglass, and Mark Twain. The Library offered classes on many subjects and was considered a meeting place for social and educational pursuits. The Library currently focuses on collecting and lending fiction, both literary and popular, presenting literary programs for the general public, and renting low-cost space to writers and other literary organizations. It has developed one of the best collections of fiction in the United States and had benefited from six National Endowment for the Humanities grants for literary programming in the past ten years.
R. J. Ellory, author of A Quiet Belief in Angels, continues his whirlwind tour of America, with stops today in Philadelphia and New York. Jason Gargano of Cincinnati CityBeat caught up with Ellory for a wide-ranging interview.
CityBeat: You have a gift for crafting unique, unpredictable narratives. Do you map out a story’s plot beforehand, or is it more of an instinctual thing?
R.J. Ellory: Very definitely an instinctual thing. Realistically, I do have a rough idea of the kind of novel I want to write before I start but I don't put an outline together, nor a synopsis. There are two things I establish in my own mind before I begin a book. The first is the emotional effect I am trying to create. The second is the location and time period of the story. The location is as important a character to me as the people in the book. Location and time period dictate language, dialect, politics, culture, so many things, especially when you are writing a book set in the States. There is such a diverse and rich contradiction and contrast of cultures here that a book set in New York and a book set in Georgia are going to be completely different stories with completely different atmospheres and feelings.
CB: As a born and bred Brit, why are you so interested in writing stories set in the United States?
RE: I think writers are often told, “Write what you know.” Though I don't think this is a bad piece of advice, I do think it's somewhat limiting. I think you should concentrate on writing what you’re interested in. The things that interest me just wouldn't work in a British setting. If you want to write complex political conspiracies, serial killer novels set in post-Depression Georgia, books about the CIA, the FBI, the assassination of the Kennedys and such things, well they just wouldn't work in those small green villages in England where you find hobbits! That's the thing for me. I'm writing about what fascinates me. As Paul Auster said when he stated that there was no choice in becoming an author — that you were essentially “chosen” — so it has been for me in what I write about. There has been no real choice in the subjects and locations I write about. It just felt right, and it just was the thing I wanted to do.
CB: What’s up with your interest in serial killers?
RE: Well, that's a direct question! I have always been fascinated by the psychology and motivation of crime. Whereas many crimes can be classified as “crimes of passion” — jealousy, revenge, anger, the heat of the moment — or “crimes of considered necessity” — the perpetrator robs a bank or holds up a store or breaks into someone's house in the misguided belief that this is the only way they can make enough money to support themselves, etcetera — serial killing is neither one of those, and is something no-one understands. Psychiatry and psychology have never given definitive answers, and possibly never will. They certainly have never provided an explanation that then led to a preventative remedy or a cure for such behavior, and thus we are left in mystery. What is it that makes a human being just want to kill other human beings? It's certainly the case in the U.K., and I'm sure the case here in the U.S., that the vast majority of murder victims are murdered by someone they know. Well, a serial killer is killing strangers. The victims look a certain way. They do a certain thing. They say certain words or have something about them that prompts a response in this killer. And that response is an act of the most terrifying brutality against this stranger. Why? That's an interesting question, and certainly a question that has come up in several of the books I have published.
CB: It was interesting to find out that you wrote nearly two-dozen novels before Candlemoth was published in 2003. What kept you from giving up?
RE: The simple belief that this was what I wanted to do more than anything. John Lennon once said that you should find something you love and then you'd never work another day in your life. Through all that writing I was also working full-time, and coming home to write never felt like another job. It felt like my escape valve, my release. Frustrating, of course, to write 22 novels and to be told by the British publishing industry that they felt insufficiently confident about publishing a British author writing American novels, and then to be told by the U.S. publishing industry that they also liked the work but felt the same as the Brits. But what can I say? Disraeli was once quoted as saying that success was entirely dependent upon constancy of purpose. I just figured that I needed to keep going, and I did, and now the past doesn't matter. It was a good experience. Twenty-two novels in six years teaches you that you can write no matter how you feel, that you can write regardless of whether or not you're “in the mood,” and it teaches you a good work ethic!
R.J. Ellory, author of the riveting A Quiet Belief in Angels, is on tour in America for the next couple of weeks. Don't miss this rare opportunity to meet one the the world's top thriller writers!
Based in Birmingham, England, R.J. Ellory is the author of seven novels - all of which are based in America. Joining The Overlook Press this year with his first U.S. published work A Quiet Belief in Angels, Ellory has enjoyed tremendous success in the U.K. and France, and his novels have been translated in to more than 2o languages. Overlook will publish The Anniversary Man in the summer of 2010.
Sunday, October 11, 12noon
SOUTHERN FESTIVAL OF BOOKS
War Memorial Plaza
Charlotte Ave. and Sixth Ave North
Nashville, Tennessee
Monday, October 12, 7pm
BORDERS
3637 Peachtree Road NE, Suite C
Atlanta, Georgia
Tuesday, October 13, 8pm
BOOKS AND BOOKS
265 Aragon Avenue
Coral Gables, Florida 33134
Wednesday, October 14, 7pm
The Book Stall at Chestnut Court
811 Elm Street.
Winnetka Illinois 60093
Thurs/Fri, October 15-16
BOUCHERCON 2009
Hyatt Regency Indianapolis
Indianapolis, Indiana
Saturday, October 17
BOOKS BY THE BANKS
Cincinnati USA Book Festival
Duke Energy Convention Center
Cincinnati, OH
Monday, October 19
12noon-1pm
BORDERS
Philadelphia, PA
7pm
BARNES & NOBLE Tribeca
97 Warren Street (at Greenwich)
New York, NY
Tuesday, October 20
MERCANTILE LIBRARY CENTER FOR FICTION, 7pm
15 E. 43rd Street
New York, NY
At long last, R.J. Ellory makes his American debut TODAY with the acclaimed thriller A Quiet Belief in Angels!
“There aren’t nearly enough beautifully written novels, that are also great mysteries. Like The Girl With the Dragon Tatoo and Smilla's Sense of Snow, A Quiet Belief in Angels is one of them.” –James Patterson
“A Quiet Belief in Angels is a beautiful and haunting book. This is a tour de force from R. J. Ellory.” –Michael Connelly
"R. J. Ellory is a uniquely gifted, passionate, and powerful writer, and the quality of his prose –every word, every sentence– lifts A Quiet Belief in Angels far above genre." –Alan Furst
“A mesmerizing tale whose intrigue will pull you from one page to the next without pause, casting you into the gloom of dread and the shadow of grief until you reach the climatic end. R.J. Ellory's remarkable talent for probing the unknown establishes him as the master of the genre. The perfect author to read late into the night.” –Clive Cussler
“What a discovery! Superb... one of my favorite books of the past year.” –Otto Penzler
"Roger Ellory is a class act. If you like James Lee Burke or James Sallis, he's a writer who speaks your language." -Val McDermid
“A Quiet Belief In Angels is a riveting mystery, as compelling as it is moving. Joseph is destined to become one of those seminal characters of literature. Here is a book that restores not only a quiet belief in the redemptive power of literature, but is a novel that you will read over and over again.” –Ken Bruen
"R.J. Ellory's A Quiet Belief in Angels starts out like a moody Chopin piano etude and quickly takes on the size and force of a symphony by Grieg - at times poignant and somber, at others plunging recklessly into the deep to consider many of the darkest and most dangerous caverns of the human heart, only to break through to the surface again and surge toward a shattering –and perfectly realized– crescendo. Ellory's style is original and complex, the story quite harrowing, and the book will stay with you long after you've quietly closed the end-pages and stared for a while into the complicated darkness beyond your own bedroom window." -David Stone
"A Quiet Belief in Angels is a rich, powerful, evocative novel of great psychological depth." -Jonathan Kellerman
“Roger Jon Ellory has a way of concealing the shocks in his text so that you stumble upon them, as if by accident, with some of the horror that you might feel if you too discovered the dismembered body of an eight-year-old girl. Each jolt strikes painfully, and the reader will seek, utterly riveted, this masochistic beating right to the end of the book. … This is compelling, unputdownable thriller writing of the very highest order” –The Guardian
“Ellory is a powerful talent, (A Quiet Belief in Angels) seems set to launch him into the stratosphere of crime writers” –Independent on Sunday
“This isn't your standard shock and bore serial killer novel. It's an impassioned story of a man's life told in Ellory's distinctive voice, and it confirms his place in the top flight of crime writing.” –Sunday Telegraph
Please visit http://www.quietbeliefinangels.com/ for all the news that's fit to post, including reviews, tweets, blogs, and a complete schedule of R.J. Ellory's October U.S. events!
R.J. Ellory, author of A Quiet Belief in Angels, on why America…and why the South:
"Last year I did more than one hundred and fifty public events in England and abroad, and the question I am forever asked is, ‘Why, as an Englishman, are you writing books set in the United States?’
For me, the answer couldn’t be easier. Paul Auster, a wonderful New York novelist, said that becoming a writer was not a ‘career decision’ like becoming a doctor or a policeman. You didn’t so much choose it as get chosen, and once you accepted the fact that you were not fit for anything else, you had to be prepared to walk a long, hard road for the rest of your days. And that was the case for me when it came to choosing the subject matter I wanted to write about.
I was orphaned at seven and spent the next nine years living at various schools. I read voraciously. That’s what I did to fill my time. Cross-country running, table tennis and reading. I read everything I could get my hands on. Through Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie to Algernon Blackwood and HP Lovecraft, I read and read and read. And then I came across American literature – Steinbeck, Hemingway, McCullers, Harper Lee and William Faulkner. It was like coming home. There was a rhythm and a timbre and a poetry to this literature that I had never experienced before, and I fell in love.
When I was thirteen I contracted chicken pox. I was quarantined and left to my own devices for a good week or so. It was during this time – sequestered in a twelve-bed dormitory by myself, the locked door giving on to a black-and-white checkerboard-tiled corridor – that I read a book called ‘The Shining’. Half of it I didn’t understand, and the half that I did understand scared the hell out of me. It was then that I really grasped the power of a great novel, the fact that whereas non-fiction had – as its primary purpose – the conveyance of information, fiction had as its primary purpose the evocation of an emotion.
It was – coincidentally – another Stephen King book that propelled me to write. It was November of 1987. I was studying in the south of England, and a fellow student spent all his meal times and breaks reading a book. I happened to ask him what it was. ‘IT’, he said, ‘by Stephen King’. And then he went on to detail how transfixed and captivated he was by this novel. It was then – in that moment – that a lightbulb went on in my head and I decided that this was what I wanted to do with my life. I wanted to write stories that would captivate and transfix readers to the same degree.
Why the South? Why write a book set in Georgia of all places? What is the appeal of this as a setting for a crime novel?’
Well, that question has a very simple answer as well. I went to visit a friend of mine in Austria, and while I was there I came across a copy of Truman Capote’s ‘In Cold Blood’. Though I had read ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’ and ‘Other Voices, Other Rooms’ I had not read Capote’s non-fiction novel masterpiece. I devoured it. I read it a second time, and then became very, very interested in Capote, how the book came about, who he was etc etc. I read his published works again, some articles about him, saw the film ‘Capote’ starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, and I came to the conclusion that here was a writer who gave his life for a book. The book 'In Cold Blood' made him very rich, very respected, the most famous author in America for many, many years, but ultimately it killed him. Afterwards he never really published another word, and certainly never completed another novel, and he drank himself to death. So there was the thing: A book could save someone's life, but it could also kill them. The other aspect of it was the fact that Capote left Monroeville, Alabama as a child and went to New York. The 'In Cold Blood' research (which he undertook with his childhood friend and neighbor Harper Lee) took him from New York back to smalltown, mid-west America, namely Holcomb, Kansas. So there was the other interesting idea: the juxtaposition of two worlds - smalltown mid-west America and bigtown New York. Those were the basic threads of inspiration that started me thinking about writing the book. And I wanted to write something that would (hopefully!) make people feel the way I had felt when I read such things as To Kill a Mockingbird, In Cold Blood, The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter etc etc. A Southern drama. A sweaty, sticky, intense, almost claustrophobic drama that dealt with the seeming indomitability of the human spirit against all odds. I didn't want to write a book where a Police investigation resulted in the apprehension of a killer, the three pages of psychological revelation about why the killer did what he did, the jealousy, the mother complex, the desperate attempts to kill someone who represented some other significant figure in the killer's earlier life etc. I didn't want the story to be about the killer, but the effect that the killer's actions had - not on those he killed - but on the people whose lives he touched, both directly and indirectly.
There is yet another question about fiction, and that is how much of a writer’s work is autobiographical. Yes, I did lose my parents very early in my life, as did my central character. Yes, I did go to prison (though I went for poaching, not for murder!), and yes, I suppose I always did want to be a writer. But that’s where the similarity ends. A Quiet Belief In Angels was written out of a love for the south, a love of great literature, a passion for language and prose and perplexing mysteries! It was not written to exorcise personal demons, though I can say something about this book that makes it special to me. I think it was Hemingway who talked about losing things. He said that if you lost something bad, then the hole it left behind just filled up naturally with the good experiences of life. However, if you lost something or someone good, then the hole it left behind…well, you had to work hard to fill it up. With every other book I have written I came away feeling that I had added something to myself, that I now knew something more about a subject, that my perspective and experience was somehow enhanced. With A Quiet Belief In Angels it was quite different. When I finished the book I really felt like I’d left something of myself behind. And that – whatever it might be – is what I hope you find when you read it."
Otto Penzler and The Mysterious Bookshop in Manhattan opened its doors on Friday night to an enthusiastic group of authors and Thrillerfest attendees. Attending the festivities was Overlook's R.J. Ellory, who signed advance reading copies of A Quiet Belief in Angels. Ellory is in town for Thrillerfest, the annual conference hosted by the International Thriller Writers Association. Visit the The Ellory Journal for the author's impressions of his first trip to The Big Apple.
R.J. Ellory, author of the forthcoming A Quiet Belief in Angels (September 2009) will appear at ThrillerFest in New York on Friday, July 10. Sponsored by the International Thriller Writers organization, Thrillerfest is an annual celebration of the thriller world, and a meeting place for authors, readers, budding writers, and publishing industry professionals. Click here for registration details.
Ellory will appear on the Friday morning panel "What's So Great About Thrillers?" moderated by Richard Doetsch. Panel participants include Steve Martini, Carla Neggers, Shane Briant, Andrew Gulli, and H. Terrell Griffin. He'll also sign advance reading copies of A Quiet Belief in Angels from 11:50am - 12:20pm. Don't miss this rare opportunity to meet the author and get a signed copy of his new book!
R.J. Ellory's A Simple Act of Violence, his third novel published in America by The Overlook Press, will go on sale this Thursday, June 2. Nominated for a Barry Award and winner of the 2010 Theakston’s Prize for Best Crime Novel of the Year in the U.K., A Simple Act of Violence is an explosive and soaring new novel.
