R. J. Ellory

English thriller writer

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

Ellory lives in Birmingham, England.

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 three 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.

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 Laureat. 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 won the Grand Prix des Blogueurs Littéraires 2021.