‘This man makes a pseudonym and crawls behind it like a worm,’ wrote Sylvia Plath in The Fearful. The weekend’s literary pages were gripped by a story of pseudonyms. R.J. Ellory, the well-regarded and critically acclaimed crime writer, has been caught penning rave reviews of his own work, and damning that of his rivals, under various pseudonyms on Amazon. Ellory ‘wholeheartedly’ regrets the ‘lapse of judgment’.
The story recalls Orlando Figes’s dishonesty with Amazon reviews. Now as then, I’m at loss to understand why someone of Ellory’s reputation felt compelled to dive to this kind of petty chicanery. The additional sales garnered by positive Amazon reviews must only be a small concern, certainly next to the dangers of detection. Perhaps it was merely the cheap thrill of subterfuge, fuelled by professional rivalry? Either way, the internet is not the private place one may imagine it to be.
Ellory was unmasked by the author Jeremy Duns, who is making a reputation as a scourge of sock-puppetry.
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