A Quiet Vendetta: A Thriller [Hardcover]

R.J. Ellory (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 5, 2012

By award-winning thriller heavyweight R.J. Ellory, this ambitious crime novel takes his skill for suspense to a spellbinding level. When Catherine Ducane disappears in New Orleans, the cops react fast--she is the governor's daughter, after all. But the case quickly grows strange.

Her bodyguard turns up horribly mutilated, and when the kidnapper calls, he doesn't want money: he wants time alone with a minor government functionary. By the time the pieces fall into place, it's already too late . . .

A Quiet Vendetta is both the epic story of one mobster's life-- ranging from Cuba to Chicago-- and equally a powerful thriller of rage, love, and loss. With tension to match the best of Cussler, Patterson, and his own best-selling work, A Quiet Vendetta confirms R.J. Ellory's place at the forefront of the genre.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"As in the very best of thrillers, A Quiet Vendetta has the ring of truth and real research behind it all. With exquisite pace and perfect timing, R.J. Ellory has given us a piercing assessment of the nature of love, loyalty and obsessive revenge, not to mention a deep understanding of la cosa nostra."

"An absorbing crime novel…a brilliantly conceived tale of greed, politics, family loyalties, and vengeance."

"An engrossing tale about organized crime from the perspective of a kidnapper whose agenda will keep you guessing until the end."

"A Quiet Vendetta is highly recommended for readers interested in the psychological makeup and motivation behind the actions of both the hunter and his prey. The faint of heart who would prefer a straightforward whodunit mystery are better advised to choose the works of a less creative writer."

"R. J. Ellory proves himself a leader among the royalty of crime writers with this five-decade-long saga of Mafia history forming the framework for an exciting, well-constructed tale that ultimately becomes one of two men attempting to redeem themselves for their many individual sins against humanity."

About the Author

R.J. Ellory is the author of eight novels, including the bestselling A Quiet Belief in Angels, which was the Strand Magazine's Thriller of the Year, nominated for the Barry Award, and a finalist for the SIBA Award. His novel, A Simple Act of Violence, won the Theakston's Crime Novel of the Year Award.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Hardcover: 496 pages
• Publisher: Overlook Hardcover; First Edition edition (January 5, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1590205081
• ISBN-13: 978-1590205082
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.4 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #81,653 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Roger Jon Ellory was born in Birmingham, England, June 20th 1965 at Sorento Hospital. The hospital has now been demolished. There is no direct evidence that the two events were linked.

His father having already left before Roger was born, he was then orphaned at the age of seven. His mother, Carole - an actress and dancer - died as a result of a pneumonia epidemic that claimed more than a dozen victims in the early 1970s. In 1973 Roger was swiftly despatched to a boarding school and stayed there until he was sixteen. Upon leaving school he returned to Birmingham to live with his maternal grandmother. His grandfather had already drowned off the Gower Peninsula in the south of Wales in 1957. In April of 1982 Roger's grandmother died following a number of heart attacks.

At seventeen years of age he was arrested for poaching. He was charged,tried, and sentenced to a jail term which he served without causing too much trouble. Upon his release he vanished quietly into relative obscurity to pursue interests in graphic design, photography and music. As a guitar player in a band called 'The Manta Rays' he was partly responsible for their reputation as the loudest band south of Manchester and north of London. Following the untimely death of their drummer, Roger quit the music scene and devoted himself to studying obscure philosophies and reading. Through the complete works of Conan Doyle, Michael Moorcock, JRR Tolkien, numerous books by Stephen King and many others, his interest in fiction steadily grew, not only from the viewpoint of a reader, but a burgeoning interest as a writer.

Roger began his first novel on November 4th, 1987 and did not stop, except for three days when he was going through a divorce from his first wife, until July of 1993. During this time he completed twenty-two novels, most of them in longhand, and accumulated several hundred polite and complimentary rejection letters from many different and varied publishers. The standard response from the UK publishing trade was that they could not consider the possibility of publishing books based in the United States written by an Englishman. He was advised to send his work to American publishers, which he duly did, and received from them equally polite and complimentary rejection letters that said it was not possible for American publishers to publish books set in the US written by an Englishman. Roger stopped writing out of sheer frustration and did not start again until August 2001. Between August 2001 and January 2002 he wrote three books, the second of which was called Candlemoth. This was purchased by Orion UK and published in 2003. How and why it was published is another story entirely, which if you ever go to one of Roger's events he will tell you! Candlemoth was translated into German, Dutch and Italian. The book also secured a nomination on the shortlist for the Crime Writers' Association Steel Dagger for Best Thriller 2003.

Roger's second book, Ghostheart, was released in 2004 in the UK, and his third book, A Quiet Vendetta, was released in August 2005. In 2006 he published City of Lies, and once again secured a nomination for the CWA Steel Dagger for Best Thriller of that year. City of Lies was also translated into Bulgarian and made available in Large Print. His fifth book - A Quiet Belief In Angels - was published in August 2007, and in the latter part of the year it was selected for the phenomenally successful British TV equivalent of the Oprah Winfrey Book Club, the Richard and Judy Book Club. The book was purchased for translation into more than twenty languages including French, Italian, Japanese, Brazilian, Norwegian and Lithuanian, released on both abridged and unabridged audio, and made available in Large Print. As of mid-2008, there were more than 300,000 copies of the book in circulation in the UK alone. It was shortlisted for the Barry Award for Best British Crime Fiction Novel of 2008, the 813 Trophy, the Quebec Booksellers' Prize, the Europeen Du Point Award, and was the winner of the Inaugural Prix Roman Noir Nouvel Observateur in France. Roger has also been contracted to write the screenplay by Oscar-winning writer and director of 'Le Vie En Rose', Olivier Dahan.

In September of 2009 A Quiet Belief In Angels will be released by Overlook Press in the United States.

Currently there are a further three books due for release in the UK - the first in the fall of 2009 ('The Anniversary Man'), the second in 2010, and Roger is currently working on the third which will be released in 2011.

On numerous occasions people have tried to identify Roger's work with a particular genre - crime, thriller, historical fiction - but this categorisation has been a relatively fruitless endeavour. Roger's ethos is merely to work towards producing a good story, something that encapsulates elements of humanity and life without necessarily slotting into a predetermined pigeonhole. He attempts to produce an average of forty thousand words a month, and aims to get a first draft completed within three to four months. His wife thinks he is a workaholic, his son considers him slightly left-of-centre, but they put up with him regardless. His son has long since been aware of the fact that 'dad' buys stuff, and thus his idiosyncrasies should be tolerated.

Roger doesn't read anywhere enough books, doesn't watch enough movies, and keeps trying to remedy these omissions. To date he has routinely failed.

Recently he read a book called 'How Not To Write A Novel' by David Armstrong. His favourite quote from this book went along the lines of 'The harder you work the luckier you get'. He agrees with this principle, and thus has no intention of retiring from anything, ever.

He's just going to keep on writing, and he hopes people keep on reading, and now there are people showing up to readings and signings that he has never met before, he feels that his purpose as a writer is at last being accomplished.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A noisy recommendation!, October 10, 2008

By 

OEJ Aboard (England) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Quiet Vendetta (Hardcover)

I have now read all five in the R J Ellory portfolio (his sixth is due Oct 2008) and not for the first time, I kissed this one as I closed the last page. This man, in my opinion, doesn't know how to write a bad or even mediocre novel. I have never given 5 stars to every book by the same author before, and that would include my personal favourites. I guess Ellory will inevitably slip up sooner or later, but until then I must say that all five of his novels published to date are absolutely top-notch pieces of writing and any one of them could be another reader's first preference. As for A QUIET VENDETTA, the third of the five published, I can only say buy it, borrow it or somehow get your hands on it because it is a captivating story that you just won't want to end.

Some feel that Ellory isn't a crime fiction writer, that his work cannot be pigeon-holed into any specific genre, and while I understand that argument, this story is probably the most criminal of them all. It takes a while before the reader can latch onto who the central character is; at first we assume it to be John Verlaine, a Homicide Detective in New Orleans - but it isn't. Then we figure it to be New York based Special Investigator Ray Hartmann - but again, it isn't. In fact it is more than one hundred pages into the story before we finally know who it's really all about: Ernesto Cabrera Perez, and the narrative switches from third-person to first person as the elderly Perez tells Hartmann his life story. And what a life it was.

Perez is a quite extraordinary man, a man of unquestioning loyalty and devotion to his family. But apart from his own family, at least the one he creates as opposed to his forebears, he is very deeply entrenched in a family of a very different kind. Despite his Cuban blood, Perez is a life-long 'troubleshooter' for the Italian Mafia in various cities across America. When there's trouble, he shoots - and he never misses. Yes, he is the absolutely reliable hit-man in a world of organised crime spanning five decades or more, and for once Ellory not only uses politically significant events in 20th-century American history as a time stamp, as a backdrop to the story; this time his key character is directly involved in it. Perez is responsible for one of the most notorious 'hits' in the chronicles of organised crime. Seeing as this particular murder was never solved in reality, there is an acceptable degree of credibility to this supposedly fictitious thread of the overall story. Despite this, it is actually only of minor relevance in itself, because the backbone of the tale is the kidnapping of the daughter of Louisiana Governor Charles Ducane, and Perez promises Hartmann to divulge her whereabouts once he has fully told his life story. Whether she is alive or dead, he cannot say. So begins a massive FBI-administered hunt for the abducted young girl, but she will not be found until Perez tells them where to look.

It would be easy to pick holes in the novel, and I have to confess that it was quite a while before I realised how special it is, so it does require a little patience to get fully into it. Once there, however, once I was really inside the mind and soul of Ernesto Perez, I never wanted it to end. True, it's the kind of story I favour best in being built around the world of the Mafia in their halcyon years, so I have to admit to being easily persuaded but then again it needs to have been written well and that it most certainly has been. But it is special, even among other Ellory novels, and without doubt it is one of the most engrossing books I have read in recent years. I am sorry to have finished it - you can't beat the first time, can you? - but it's one the very few books in my personal library that I know I will read again. It isn't about the destination, fascinating though that would prove to be, no - it is about the journey, the ruthlessly riveting world that was the life of Ernesto Perez.

Unconditionally recommended.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not to be missed!, August 3, 2008

By 

Big Bertha (UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Quiet Vendetta (Paperback)

Absolutely superb! Having already read 'Ghostheart' and 'A Quiet Belief In Angels' this is the third book I've read by Roger Ellory and I have to say this is definitely in my opinion, the best so far.

The life story of a Mafia hitman unfolds before us as Ernesto Perez (The Cuban) relates it to Ray Hartmann who works for the organised crime task force in Washington DC. After handing himself in to the FBI following the kidnapping of the daughter of the Governor of Louisiana, Perez reveals he worked as a hit man for the Mob and only when Hartmann has listened to his life story will he tell him where the missing Catherine Ducane is.

As chapter by chapter his past is revealed from a Child in New Orleans of Cuban parentage to the heart of the American Mafia, I found it hard not to warm to the central character with his strong values of family life and gentle manner despite the atrocities he admits to being a part of.

Would make a terrific movie!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A must read for thriller/adventure lovers!, August 4, 2010

By 

Samantha - See all my reviews

This review is from: Quiet Vendetta (Hardcover)

I bought this book for my father after having read it myself. It's a wonderful tale, loosely based on actual events, of one man's life and actions on the dark side of reality. The author is a fabulous, descriptive story-teller who succeeds in keeping the reader on the edge, leading him through the book, and finishing his story in a way that is satisfying to the reader who was in for the ride until the very end (this comment is not a spoiler!).