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A Simple Act of Violence | 
| Author: R.j. Ellory
Publisher: Orion
Category: Book
List Price: £9.99
Buy New: £6.59
You Save: £3.40 (34%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  4 reviews
Sales Rank: 4501
Media: Paperback
Pages: 512
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.7
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6 x 1.6
ISBN: 0752891898
EAN: 9780752891897
ASIN: 0752891898
Publication Date: October 2, 2008 (New: This Week)
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
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| Customer Reviews:
Exceeded My Expectations! October 6, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Apart from being the fourth victim of a serial killer, who is Catherine Sheridan? This is a question that had me fervently turning the pages of this book in an attempt to find the answer.
Detectives Robert Miller & Al Roth from the Second precinct are put on the case and are having no more luck than me (and I've got a whole other storyline running in tandem filling in the blanks for me). Every lead they follow draws a blank, every question they get answered leaves them with many more. They're faced with people that don't exist and events that never happened. Running alongside is another storyline, the story of John Robey that takes you into the undercover world of a CIA operative working alongside the rebel groups opposing Nicaragua's Sandinista National Liberation Front.
Corruption, intrigue, brutality and a love story, this book has it all and will keep you turning the pages. The characters are real, they have weaknesses and they make mistakes.
How much is fiction, how much is based on fact? Not a question I can answer at this time, but it's something I want to know more about. The setting and storyline cover events that, I'm ashamed to admit; I know very little about. The amount of research that must have gone into this book is astounding and all credit to the author, he left me wanting to know more.
This book far exceeded my expectations, I couldn't put it down, but at the same time I didn't want it to end! Now I just want to read it all over again.
Yet another truly exceptional book October 5, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
As can be easily determined by the fact that I generally review RJ Ellory's books, I am a great fan of this author. I saw him speak at Reading Festival and was suprised by his complete lack of self-importance. I loved A Quiet Belief In Angels, and having followed this author right from Candlemoth, I found it hard to imagine what he might do after such a powerhouse of a novel as the last one. Well, he has done what I eventually concluded he might do, and he has written something entirely different, and yet so inescapably an Ellory book. It is not possible to say one of Ellory's books is better than another because of this simple fact - each of them are extraordinary stories told in an exceptional way. They are not crime thrillers, and yet they are a great deal more thrilling than most books in the genre. This one, for example, is a book about the CIA, and yet it is also about a Washington serial killer, a group of frustrated and red-tape-bound policemen, a relationship that lasted twenty years or more, and then it's also about the start of a new relationship for one of the central characters, and on it goes. It's not really possible to give this book a genre as such, and in all honesty I don't think it needs one. The prose is superb, as always, the pace is electrifying, the scope of the book and how much research must have gone into it is mind-boggling, and yet it reads so smoothly and so effortlessly that you feel it couldn't have been written any other way. I just hope that every single person who read and enjoyed A Quiet Belief In Angels gives this one a go as well, for the simple reason that they will begin to appreciate the breadth and diversity of this author's talent. Exceptional, extraordinary, and when you come to the end you wish you hadn't started it so you could begin it right over again. A fabulous, fabulous book. I absolutely loved it.
Thought provoking October 4, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Buy "A Simple Act of Violence" if you want a thought provoking crime novel which will inspire you to learn more about its historical context. It's very readable, with likeable characters, and far better written (for example in its dialogue and description) than all those formulaic crime thrillers, which rely on basic shock value, or clichés such as: will the missing girl be found alive!
An exceptional achievement. I loved it. September 30, 2008
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
I have read all RJE's novels, and like many readers, I have always been transported by the beautiful prose and wonderfully woven plot. As can be observed, this author has the ability to write in many different styles, the style of A Simple Act Of Violence is very much a fast past thriller, except that it is epic in scope, and still maintains a quality of writing, which I believe sets RJE above his contemporaries.
We have two stories in this novel. First is the story set in the vividly portrayed Washington D.C, where the Ribbon Killer has burst onto the pages of a myriad of D.C broadsheets following four gruesome murders. Detective Robert Miller is charged with the responsibility of making sense of these killings, particularly that of victim number four; Catherine Sheridan. As he delves deeper, things make less sense, become more complicated, and then he comes upon a very interesting character.
This character's back story is told separately but does not make the novel in any way disjointed. Like in past RJE novels, it is interwoven gracefully. The story of the indoctrination and deployment of this character in the CIA is in my opinion Ellory's best writing to date. The research that went into to this must have been immense. Solid facts are entwined with fiction so skilfully that you cannot see the seams or the joins. The descriptions of the questionable activities of this CIA, this "Sacred Monster" provide electrifying and terrifying revelations in equal measure.
We have here a novel with wonderful depth, great characterisation, and the fastest pace of all RJE's books thus far. If you loved A Quiet Vendetta for its sheer audacity of scope, or a Quiet Belief in Angels for its wonderful characterisation, then this is veritable feast. You see, this book exceeds both of them on both fronts.
An immense achievement, go and read it I think you will love it, it is certainly at the top of my favourite ever reads. RJ Ellory is here to stay.
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