Candlemoth: A Thriller - Hardcover

Ellory, R.J.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1590205162 ISBN 13: 9781590205167

Publisher: Overlook Books, 2013

Synopsis

With the verve and gift for gripping storytelling that made his previous books, including A Quiet Belief in Angels, international bestsellers, R. J. Ellory returns with a sweeping saga of murder and retribution in 1960s America.

Daniel Ford has thirty days to live: accused of the horrific murder of his best friend Nathan twelve years before, he has exhausted all appeals and now faces the long walk to the electric chair. Father John Rousseau is the man to whom the last month of Daniel's life has been entrusted. With time running out, Ford begins to tell his story, beginning with his first meeting with Nathan, aged six by a South Carolina lake, through first loves, Vietnam, the death of Kennedy, and finally their flight from the draft which ended in Nathan's brutal murder.

A stunning suspense novel and tale of a lost friendship, Candlemoth is for all fans of The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile.

About this title

About the Author

R.J. Ellory is the author of eight novels, including the bestselling A Quiet Belief in Angels, which was the Strand Magazine's Thriller of the Year, nominated for the Barry Award, and a finalist for the SIBA Award. His novel A Simple Act of Violence won the Theakston's Crime Novel of the Year Award, and A Quiet Vendetta was praised by Booklist as "the best mafia novel since The Godfather." He will become head of the International Mystery Writers.

Reviews

It’s 1982, and Daniel Ford is just weeks away from execution for the murder of his best friend. Although innocent, he barely refuted the charge and hasn’t fully told his story until now, to his priest counselor. Daniel begins his story in Greenleaf, South Carolina, where he and Nathan Verney crossed the racial divide of the 1960s to become unlikely best friends. Alternating rapid-fire historical context (both confirmed and alleged) with the pair’s story, Ellory constructs a virtual cliff from which they plummet after Nathan is drafted into the Vietnam War, and Daniel joins him on the dodge. Heading south instead of the expected route, toward the Canadian border, they confront steady doses of racial hatred but remain relatively unscathed until they return to Greenleaf, where mutual intoxication with a powerful politician’s daughter results in murder. The foreshadowing is frustratingly heavy at times, but the storytelling’s beckoning quality and the conclusion’s welcome twist easily bury such grievances. Englishman Ellory convincingly disproves the belief of many that southern writing can’t be convincingly mimicked. For fans of Tom Franklin, John Hart, and, remarkably, even Pat Conroy. --Christine Tran

Edition details

• Publisher: Overlook Books
• Publication date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1590205162
• ISBN 13: 9781590205167
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 352