The Accident on the A35

von Graeme Macrae Burnet

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.

"Highly accomplished, The Accident on the A35 works on several levels... The narration has the simple momentum of classic crime writing... It has a denouement like something out of Greek tragedy but delivers as a proper police procedural too... Burnet's cleverness doesn't get in the way of your enjoyment but playfully adds levels of meaning." Anthony Cummins, Observer

"[A] truly superlative tale... fascinating... one of the most clever and compelling novels to be published this year." Lesley McDowell, Herald

"As steeped in the works of Simenon as a good boeuf bourgignon is in red wine. The characters' pretensions are mercilessly exposed in frill-free prose... What matters, of course, is whether a novel's characters seem to the reader to be alive. Burnet's do." Jake Kerridge, Telegraph

"There are so many echoes of French writers in this book... [Raymond] is a fantastic depiction of the typical alienated teenager." Alex Clark, BBC Radio 4 Open Book

"Simenon fans will feel at home in the claustrophobic and petty-minded atmosphere of the French provinces." 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