Candlemoth

R. J. Ellory Press 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)