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A young man sitting on Death Row reflects on the life that brought him to his seemingly sealed fate. In 1982, 36-year-old Daniel Ford is about a month away from execution for the inexplicable murder of his lifelong friend Nathan Verney. Daniel has supporters in prison, a handful of people determined to save him, both body (earnest warden Clarence Timmins) and soul (chain-smoking Father John Rousseau), as well as one big antagonist: the notorious guard Mr. West, despised by all the inmates for his sadistic abuse. His interactions with them counterpoint Daniel's first-person flashbacks from childhood up to the fateful day that he's arrested for brutally killing Nathan. With an incomplete grasp of American idiom that sometimes undercuts credibility, British first-novelist Ellory shows the boys meeting at age six in their rural hometown, Greenleaf, North Carolina. Caucasian Daniel is too young to understand the forbidden nature of his friendship with African-American Nathan, nor does he much care, especially after Nathan saves him from a clutch of bullies. As children, the two find refuge with the local eccentric, Eve Chantry, the matriarch of Greenleaf. Notable historic events from the time of their youth-the Kennedy assassination, the burgeoning civil rights movement, the Vietnam War and resulting protest movement, etc.-become both touchstones for Daniel's growth and the lens (a la Forrest Gump) through which the story is told. As the boys advance through their teens, the war escalates and the prospect of the draft looms ever larger in their thoughts. Nathan receives his notice first, and the pair decides to hit the road, not for Canada as might be expected but for an extended stint as vagabonds around the South. Racism and a shared love figure prominently in Nathan's death and Daniel's undoing. Brooding narrative engages interest, but could use less musing and more plot. (Kirkus Reviews)

Daniel Ford's 12 years behind bars are coming to an end. In 36 days the state will take its revenge for the murder of Nathan Verney, Daniel's lifelong friend. Daniel struggles to put his life in order, to put into perspective his brief moments on the planet, to hold them up against those tumultuous years of '50s and '60s America in which his life was played out. Daniel needs to pinpoint his mistakes and his weaknesses because he believes that somehow, somewhere he is to blame. Not for the murder of Nathan, of which he is innocent, but for allowing himself to be drawn into the whole sorry mess that his life has become. But Daniel can't know of the powerful forces that worked against him then, forces that are working against him still. Father John Rousseau does, though, and although Daniel doesn't know it yet, Father John Rousseau is his only hope. Roger Jon Ellroy's first novel is a worthy attempt to capture the traumatizing American experience of conspiracy and war that was the 1960s, showing how the carefree lives of Daniel Ford and Nathan Verney are slowly eroded by the events that are happening around them on the bigger stage. Ellroy's flavour of small-town America is nicely evoked and carefully distilled. The relationship between the two central characters is realistically argumentative and temperamental. The novel's only weakness lies in the depiction of their adversaries; whether loud-mouthed college kids or Ku Klux Klan thugs, they lack the necessary definition to be anything more than bogeymen. For the most part, however, this is an accomplished, well-paced novel with a nicely written if unsurprising ending. (Kirkus UK)

Author Information

R.J Ellory is the author of the bestselling A QUIET BELIEF IN ANGELS, which was a Richard and Judy Book Club selection in 2008 and was shortlisted for the Barry Award, the 813 Trophy, the Quebec Booksellers' Prize and was winner of the Nouvel Observateur Crime Fiction Prize. His work has been translated into twenty-three languages and he was awarded the Theakston's Crime Novel of the Year for his recent novel, A SIMPLE ACT OF VIOLENCE. R.J Ellory currently lives in England. www.rjellory.com.

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