R.J. Ellory is an award-winning, best-selling British crime writer who authored such novels as "A Simple Act of Violence" and "A Quiet Belief in Angels." He is also a blatant and malicious liar. Over 50 of Ellory's colleagues recently alleged he wrote glowing fake reviews of his own books and mocking, sniping reviews of his competitors on sites like Amazon.com under the pseudonym "Nicodemus Jones."

In a public letter to British newspaper The Telegraph, the group of British writers, including Mark Billingham and Stuart MacBride - who were targeted by Ellory - said that with the advent of the internet, honest comment had never been more important.

"These days more and more books are bought, sold, and recommended online, and the health of this exciting new ecosystem depends entirely on free and honest conversation among readers. But some writers are misusing these new channels in ways that are fraudulent and damaging to publishing at large.

"Few in publishing believe they are unique. It is likely that other authors are pursuing these underhand tactics as well. We ... unreservedly condemn this behavior, and commit never to use such tactics.

"But the only lasting solution is for readers to take possession of the process. The internet belongs to us all. Your honest and heartfelt reviews, good or bad, enthusiastic or disapproving, can drown out the phoney voices, and the underhanded tactics will be marginalized to the point of irrelevance."

A fellow crime writer Jeremy Duns first stumbled across Ellory's fake reviews and exposed him on Twitter. Afterwards, the author had no choice but to fess up to calling one of his own novels "a modern masterpiece" that "will touch your soul."

"All I will say is that there are paragraphs and chapters that just stopped me dead in my tracks," he wrote as Nicodemus Jones. "Some of it was chilling, some of it raced along, some of it was poetic and langorous and had to be read twice and three times to really appreciate the depth of the prose ... it really is a magnificent book."

Amid a growing worldwide backlash against the "underhand tactics," 47-year-old Ellory has come clean saying that he had written at least a dozen posts on the internet using pseudonyms.

In a series of messages to fans and rivals on social networking sites, he repeatedly apologized for his actions on websites such as Amazon and vowed he would not "avoid responsibility".

The author, who is based in Birmingham, also admitted his attacks on his rivals including Mark Billingham and Stuart MacBride were unwarranted.

"The recent reviews... are my responsibility and my responsibility alone," Ellory said in a statement. "I wholeheartedly regret the lapse of judgment that allowed personal opinions to be disseminated in this way and I would like to apologize to my readers and the writing community."

The writer has faced a deluge of criticism from fans and authors worldwide this week, many of whom have taken to the Internet to voice their anger.

The Crime Writers Association issued its own statement to decry the practice, which Duns called "very widespread."

"We are concerned that they are being misleading to readers and we feel this practice is unfair to authors," the association said in its statement. "It does not fit with our ethos." With that in mind, the group said it was considering codifying its ethos for the benefit of members.

But Ellory is only the tip of the iceberg, according to Duns and Billingham. Two years ago, the historian Orlando Figes admitted to trashing his rivals and praising himself on Amazon, and at the Harrogate crime festival earlier this summer, the bestselling thriller writer Stephen Leather said, "As soon as my book is out I'm on Facebook and Twitter several times a day talking about it. I'll go on to several forums, the well-known forums, and post there under my name and under various other names and various other characters. You build up this whole network of characters who talk about your books and sometimes have conversations with yourself."

"[Ellory] absolutely isn't the only one," said Billingham, adding that Ellory had also apologized to him personally. "It's very widespread ... And what has been most shocking about some of the more recent revelations is that up until this moment most of us had presumed that the people doing this stuff were self-published writers with no other means of marketing. But these most recent revelations prove this is not the case and it is very worrying."

"It's absolutely rife," agreed Duns. "It's so tempting, it's so easy ... and it's very, very hard to prove it."

"Maybe we are fighting an uphill battle because it is very widespread but we are taking a stand," said Billingham. "It's an incredibly difficult thing to police though - whatever statement writers make, those intent on doing it will ignore it. [But] I hope at the very least it serves as a wake-up call to people - those who have been doing it for a while and thinking they will get away with it. At the very best [being found out] is embarrassing. At the worst it will cost people careers."

Duns has suggested that sites such as Amazon could instigate a system whereby only accounts linked to Facebook pages, or to verified purchases, could post reviews. "It's not just Amazon, it's all of these sites. They have put in place these systems that are totally open to abuse, and then when people say this is going on they say we can't possibly police it."