Roger John Ellory's Candlemoth makes a decent but not entirely successful stab at being several novels. It is a protest against the death penalty and about inhuman treatment of prisoners that dramatises both issues by showing us Daniel, who has been railroaded to the electric chair over the brutal murder of his best friend. Inevitably though, Daniel is so passive and battered by his situation that the book can show us little except his pain. Offstage, it is a thriller about the process whereby he was framed and might be acquitted, but Ellory de-emphasises this aspect of the plot in favour of Daniel's suffering.

Much of the book is taken up in a memoir of the 60s, when Daniel and his best friend Nathan had a relationship that crossed racial boundaries in a south torn by conflict and when they went on the run to avoid being drafted into an unjust war. The book is vivid in its sense of the time, but again there is a sense of Daniel as someone who never really lives his own life--even in love and friendship he is the person to whom emotions and events happen. --Roz Kaveney

2008-07-12 Fabulous!

This is RJ Ellory's first novel, published in 2004. After reading both A Quiet Belief In Angels and A Simple Act of Violence, I just knew I had to go and read his back catalogue.

Dealing with the story of two friends in 1960s and 70s southern America, I was gripped all the way through. Daniel is on death row, found guilty of murdering Nathan his best friend. Daniel is white and Nathan was black. The story starts with Daniel awaiting his execution and is related back to the reader when Daniel tells his story to Father Rousseau whilst in his cell.

The reader accompanies Daniel and Nathan on their journey through life, from meeting as 8 years old, having their first girlfriends, dodging the Vietnam draft whilst experiencing racism and hate along the way.

Roger Ellory is masterful in creating full developed, believeable characters and setting a scene so that you are transported there.

The momentum is really built up towards the end of the book, I raced through to the end, holding my breath along the way.

I also loved the story of Eve Chantry, the old woman in the town who the boys thought was a witch, yet turned out to be a great friend and influence on Daniel.