My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I really enjoyed The Lie, so when I spotted The Accident, I had to grab it.
Sue’s daughter, Charlotte is in a coma after being hit by a bus. Everyone thinks it was an accident, but Sue is not so sure.
There’s a lot of discussion about unreliable narrators in thrillers at the moment. In theory, Sue is an unreliable narrator because of her PTSD, except you know that what she thinks happened, did happen. Where the unreliability kicks in, is when she ascribes meaning to the things that happened. This works very well in that it provides some interesting twists to the plot where you’re not sure if Sue is right…
This is a tense story, well told. Sue is a believable and, because you understand how she became the way she is, sympathetic. Her feelings of guilt (because being a parent is full of guilt, no matter how hard you try) and fear and the fierce need to protect her daughter were all wonderful. The secondary characters were brilliant (I especially liked Brian) and even the baddie is almost understandable.
A great book. It pretty much swallowed up my Sunday as I kept sneaking off to read it.
See my comments on emotionally abusive relationships in fiction .
Rhoda Baxter 