R J Ellory, Candlemoth (2003) 1st ed., signed leather rebinding 1/12 deluxe lettered with an author profile approved and signed by the author.

Author Profile text: “Beginning with Candlemoth (2003) and now fifteen years later R J Ellory continues to fascinate hard-boiled crime fans with his distinctive narratives of brutality and redemption Many of the novels are curiously set in either a place known for its modernity/high living (New York, Florida or California) or its opposite, where people resist new ways of life on the farmland of the South. In his books Ellory explores how his characters resist both obvious character-type and their surroundings; more candidly they seem to gain the strength to survive and seeing outside themselves into a better, more just, world.

In style and influences, Ellory taps into the Faulkner motif of good and evil, where historical and social changes are important not just to the context but in setting plot lines. This famous literary source has been a strand in American literature through both literary and crime writers. Candlemoth is a dark story of a prisoner on death row in the Eighties; but by turns it is a book about growing up in the South in the Sixties; about the power, wealth and politics of those times; and a triangle of forced circumstances pressing in on friendships – derived from power politics in a divided South, racism and the Draft. The choice of whether to fight or avoid the Draft makes Dan and Nathan homeless drifters. The novel is a really a lamentation on the choices in life Dan Ford tries to deal with.

In a prison cell awaiting the end of his days Dan Ford dreams he is carrying his own body to a watery grave. He has only bitter memories. His life is all played out, consoled only by the visiting Fr. Rousseau. He tells of what happened and how his life long friend was murdered, the trial and confession. Near the end Dan is resigned to his death: loss of breath, daggers drawn, pain in the side … “I could hear the blackness coming”. Yet in the end solace is found. A remarkable first entry for R J Ellory”.

Issued in Spring 2019 with the original dust jacket. Scorpion Press has also published a rebinding of A Quiet Belief in Angels – which was fully subscribed.  Some years ago signed limited edition of Ellory’s  Anniversary Man was issued. Some are still available.