R. J. Ellory

Roger Jon Ellory (born 20 June 1965) is an English thriller writer.

Personal life

Ellory lives in Birmingham, England.

Writing

His first novel to be accepted for publication, Candlemoth, was published in 2003 and was shortlisted for the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award that year. Ghostheart was published in 2004 and A Quiet Vendetta in 2005. His fourth novel, City of Lies (2006), was shortlisted for the CWA Steel Dagger for Best Thriller. A Quiet Belief in Angels was selected as one of the titles in the Richard & Judy Bookclub 2008. A Quiet Belief in Angels has sold more than 1,000,000 copies, and has also been purchased for translation into a total of twenty-six languages. It was ranked third in the Sunday Times bestselling book list in the week of its review on TV. It was shortlisted for the Barry Award for best British crime fiction 2008, the 7th Prix Du Polar Européen 2008 of the weekly French magazine Le Point, Le Nouvel Observateurs Crime Writing Prize 2008, and the Quebec Booksellers' Prize 2008. It won Le Nouvel Observateurs inaugural Prix du Roman Noir in 2009. In October 2008 A Simple Act of Violence won Theakston's Crime Novel of the Year 2010.

Between March and April 2012, Ellory released a trilogy of novellas making up the ebook-exclusive Three Days in Chicagoland, focusing on the brutal murder of a young girl in Chicago in 1956, as told from three different viewpoints: The Sister, The Cop and The Killer.

Awards

In 2003, Ellory's debut novel, Candlemoth, was shortlisted for the CWA Steel Dagger for Best Thriller.

In 2010, A Quiet Vendetta won the Prix Des Libraires Du Quebec. Additionally, it won the Villeneuve les Avignon Literary Festival Readers' Prize in 2010 and the St. Maur Prix Polar in 2011.

A Simple Act of Violence was shortlisted for the Barry Award for Best British Crime Fiction 2009 and won the Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award for 2010.

Les Assassins (The Anniversary Man) won the Plume d'Or 2016 for Thriller Internationale.

Chant de l'Assassin (Mockingbird Songs) won the Grand Prix des Blogueurs Littéraires 2021.

The Bell Tower was shortlisted for the UK Crime Writers Association Gold Dagger 2025.

Au Nord de la Frontière (The Last Highway) won Best Thriller at the Créteil International Festival of Books 2025.

Everglades (The Bell Tower) won Grand Prix des Lecteurs (La Ruche des Mots) 2025

Works Candlemoth (2003) Ghostheart (2004) A Quiet Vendetta (2005) City of Lies (2006) A Quiet Belief in Angels (2007) A Simple Act of Violence (2008) The Anniversary Man (2009) Saints of New York (2010) Bad Signs (2011) A Dark and Broken Heart (2012) Three Days in Chicagoland Trilogy (2012) The Sister The Cop The Killer The Devil and the River (2013) Carnival of Shadows (2014) Mockingbird Songs (2015) Chicagoland (2015) with Fabrice Colin & Sacha Goerg Kings of America (2017) Three Bullets (2019) The Actor's Playbook (2020) The Man Who Ate The World (2020) (All proceeds to charity) Proof of Life (2021) Seul le Silence (2021) with Fabrice Colin and Richard Guérineau The Darkest Season (2022) The Actor's Playbook (Second Edition) (2022) The Last Highway (2023) The Bell Tower (2024) A Darker Side of Paradise (2025) Vendetta (2025) with Fabrice Colin and Bartolomé Segui The House of Falling Light (2026)