The Accident on the A35

From the author of “His Bloody Project”, shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2016. There does not appear to be anything remarkable about the fatal car crash on the A35. But one question dogs Inspector Georges Gorski: where has the victim, an outwardly austere lawyer, been on the night of his death? The troubled Gorski finds himself drawn into a mystery that takes him behind the respectable veneer of the sleepy French backwater of Saint-Louis. Graeme Macrae Burnet returns with a literary mystery that will beguile fans of “His Bloody Project” and “The Disappearance of Adèle Bedeau”. Darkly humorous, subtle and sophisticated, “The Accident on the A35” burrows deep into the psyches of its characters and explores the forgotten corners of small-town life. " Times and Sunday Times Crime Club Picks of the Month "Fans of His Bloody Project will [enjoy] familiar themes including questions of authorship, betrayal, family, love, death, truth and lies (or rather, what can be said to be true, if anything, and what is false?), and the possibilities of youth versus the reality of adulthood." Alistair Braidwood, Scots Whay Hae "Elegant, craftily written and frequently funny." Phil Miller, Herald "Clever, meandering and oh, so French… Burnet really has — a rare thing nowadays — a novelist's eye… I confess myself seduced by the atmosphere of provincial ennui. I longed to shrug gallically at a detective through a haze of cigarette smoke, to pour myself a drink from a cut-glass decanter, to drive to the next town to make acrobatic love to a beautiful…I'm getting carried away." James Marriott, Times "A crime novel with post-modern flourishes… Beautifully observed…with understated humour… Wry, intelligent and a lot of fun." Andrew Taylor, Spectator "Very much a novel of skillfully drawn characters… With its nostalgic echoes of crime fiction of the past and elegant, economical prose, it affords a variety of quiet and satisfying pleasures." Barry Forshaw, Financial Times "Extravagant talent." Mark Lawson, Guardian "Both a classy detective story and a stylish meditation on agency and existence. If Roland Barthes had written a detective novel, then this would be it." Philip Womack, Literary Review "Reads like a lavishly detailed, psychologically accurate, intelligent, well-plotted, unsimple Simenon… Burnet has proved himself to be the literary games-master." David Robinson, Books from Scotland "Intriguing… distinctive… atmospheric, often surprising, with a denouement which is beautifully under-played." Allan Massie, Scotsman