Candlemoth by R.J. Ellory
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is my third novel by R.J. Ellory, after the good if unremarkable A Quiet Vendetta and A Simple Act of Violence .
Candlemoth is, by far, the best of the three. In fact, after about 100 pages, I was in total awe of the novel and loved the premise, the plot, and the characterizations. Five stars seemed certain.

Daniel Ford and Nathan Verney have been best friends since they were six years old, even if Daniel is white and Nathan is black, and the story begins in South Carolina in the 1950s, when racial segregation was the norm. We follow the story of their friendship throughout the Fifties and the tumultuous Sixties on the backdrop of a wide yet detailed panorama of political and social changes happening in the US.

However, it is the fall of 1982 now, and Daniel has been on Death Row for 12 years, awaiting execution for the murder of Nathan. Daniel claims innocence, yet all appeals have been futile. Much of the plot is set in the Death Row prison cell, where Daniel tells his and Nathan's life story to Father John, a friendly priest. The account of "life" on Death Row is terrifying, and the reader would have to be a truly hardened individual not to get emotionally affected.

To me, the story of the unusual friendship between Daniel and Nathan is fascinating and deeply moving—the best thing in a very good novel. So why not five stars? Other than being stingy with extreme praise, I think some of the aspects of the otherwise rational and almost plausible denouement are too "elegant" for real life. Also, the author may have gone a little overboard with making the good guys really good and the bad guys really bad, and with pushing all emotional buttons of the reader. Anyway, I highly recommend Candlemoth.

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