It's the Walk of Shame for R.J. Ellory

Writer of Fraudulent Book Reviews, R.J. Ellory

The Great Book Review Scandal lives on.

The latest comes from The Telegraph (London) and it regards a successful British mystery writer who has taken the hypocrisy of creating fake book reviews to a new low.  This guy not only created false online identities under which he wrote positive reviews of his own work - he used those same fake IDs to attack the work of those he feared most.  Now, some 49 legitimate mystery writers have expressed their outrage about the dishonest, cheating approach to selling books that Ellory has been using to help him become a bestselling author in the U.K.

The group, including bestselling writers Ian Rankin, Lee Child, Susan Hill, Val McDermid and Helen FitzGerald, said the widespread use of “fake identities” was causing untold damage to the publishing world.

In an outspoken attack on the so-called “sock puppeting” practice, they urged readers and the literary world to help expose colleagues who used the “underhand tactics”.

Their condemnation came after RJ Ellory, the bestselling British crime writer, was exposed for using pseudonyms to pen fake glowing reviews about his “magnificent genius” online while simultaneously criticising his rivals.

The U.K.'s Crime Writers Association has issued a statement regarding Ellory's disgraceful actions (Ellory is actually a member of the group) but is taking a rather cautious approach to the whole thing until more facts are revealed.  Sadly enough, Ellory is even a one-time board member of the Crime Writer's Association.

Frankly, what concerns me most is not that legitimate online book reviews are being tainted by lowlifes like Ellory.  What bothers me is that this is probably just the tip of the iceberg regarding what the morally-bankrupt will do to sell books.  There are others out there (Stephen Leather is, in fact, mentioned in this same article - although he is not accused of writing negative reviews of books by others).

Jeremy Duns broke the story

What can we as amateur reviewers - and the most avid readers out there - do?  We must continue to write honest reviews that explain our praise and our criticism.  We must be transparent when it comes to any ties we have to an author or how we acquired the book being reviewed.  We must not get involved in a flaming war with an author who takes offense to what we have written - but if we decide that we are wrong about something we said, we must correct our error.

What we can do immediately is to support honest writers whose work was attacked by the likes of Ellory buy buying their books (the article mentions some of those) if they appeal to our taste.  And, most importantly, we must shun writers like Roger Jon Ellory who deserve nothing from us but our scorn and contempt.

My personal thanks go to Jeremy Duns who used Twitter to expose Ellory as the cheat he is.  Thank you, Mr. Duns, for doing the right thing.  You give me hope that lifting the rocks under which these creeps hide will outrage honest readers and writers around the world and that practice will someday be a thing of the past.