The Accident on the A35

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The Accident on the A35 is the second book in the Georges Gorski series by award-winning Scottish author, Graeme Macrae Burnet. It looked pretty straightforward: Bertrand Bethelme’s Mercedes had run off the A35 into a tree, sometime after 9pm on Tuesday night. He probably fell asleep at the wheel. But after confirming his identity the following morning, his widow, Lucette raised a query: where had her husband been that night? His usual Tuesday night dinner with his club would not put him anywhere near the A35.

As with Adele Budeau, we learn in the Forward (and more in the Afterword) that this detective story was actually one of two outstanding manuscripts by the “acclaimed” (fictional) author, Raymond Brunet, delivered to the publisher on the day of his mother’s death. Brunet had died years earlier in a suicide, which leaves the reader wondering why these manuscripts weren’t sent until this very day. Burnet is such a tease with his crafty meta-fiction!

A spokesperson for Cambridgeshire Police said: "Three people have died following a three-vehicle crash near Stamford.

Motorists are being advised to expect delays. Diversions have been set up taking drivers through Bridport with motorists told to allow extra time for their journey.

I’m afraid I struggled with The Accident on the A35 by Graeme Macrae Burnet. It could well have to do with the translation, but as well as being unable to get close to the characters, I couldn’t raise any enthusiasm for the plot. It’s a long time since I read a police procedural (more or less) that was so gripping and intelligent.’

Macrae Burnet gives the reader a crime novel that is much more about the characters than about the crime being solved. The players are intimately drawn, their actions closely described, the mood of the town almost palpable and the setting thoroughly evoked, while the reader is left to reach their own conclusions on several key aspects of the story.

A spokesperson said: "Police were called to reports of a road traffic collision involving two cars on the A35 near Axminster at around 11.50am today [23 April]. Had Graeme Macrae Burnet not made last year’s Booker shortlist with his previous novel, His Bloody Project, you probably wouldn’t be reading this review: it wouldn’t exist. After all, Burnet’s Maigret-influenced debut, The Disappearance of Adèle Bedeau, went unnoticed outside his native Scotland. But the enterprise of his publisher Saraband (once of Glasgow, now based in Salford), the wisdom of the 2016 panel – and the quality of His Bloody Project, about a crofter’s son bound for the gallows after a triple murder to which he has confessed guilt but not motive – have won Burnet a keen audience for his next move. The two adults - both in their 30s - were also taken to hospital but their injuries are not believed to be serious.

There were 1,390 reported road deaths in Britain from June 2020 to June 2020, data from the Ministry of Transport shows. In a statement released today (January 17), police said a family from Cornwall were travelling in the BMW involved at the time of the crash. Mme Barthelme—alluring and apparently unmoved by the news—has a single question: where was her husband on the night of the accident? The answer might change nothing, but it could change everything. And Gorski sets a course for what can only be a painful truth. The narrative is told from two perspectives, that of Detective Gorski and that of Raymond, the teenaged son of the deceased. Gorski is still in the town of St, Louis, a small city in France where "the inhabitants are most comfortable with failure. Success serves only to remind the citizenry of their own shortcomings and is thus enthusiastically resented". Gorski's wife has left him and he spends his time drinking heavily at Le Pot. While he misses his wife, he enjoys solitude and the ability to do as he wishes when he wishes.What bugs me is I can’t find his two other books in my library. That bugs me when 1) I can’t remember if I gave books away (and as best my feeble brain can recall I did not), and 2) if I did not give them away where in the hell are they? 😟 Neither Barthelme’s widow Lucette – younger than Gorski expects – nor his 16-year-old son Raymond seem moved by the news, which Gorski delivers in person on account of the man’s social standing. Lucette even seems to be flirting, discussing her sleeping arrangements – Gorski’s eyes straying here, his wife having walked out on him with their teenage daughter.