Select the ‘Location’ tab and you’ll be able to get traffic news for your location by adding your postcode, city or town. You’ll get a live picture of traffic in and around that area, and you’ll also be able to save the details as your default location. This is a subtle book about a man living a hidden life and what transpires after his death. The reader must not mind that a crime isn’t solved or is it that there was no crime at all? In conclusion I was impressed by Graeme Macrea Burnet's skills as a writer and reading this novel has reinforced the high opinion I formed of him when reading His Bloody Project; he has intrigued and inspired me to read The Disappearance of Adele Bedeau.

I was introduced to Scottish author, Graeme Macrae Burnet, with His Blood Project, shortlisted for the Booker prize in 2016. A brilliant novel and one worth every 5 stars I gave it. Given the opportunity to read his Accident on the A35, I jumped at it. They said: “We would like to take this opportunity to praise the actions of those members of the public who swiftly ran to assist with first aid and immediate traffic control.

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Reading The Disappearance of Adèle Bedeau convinced me that Burnet was channeling Simenon; while carrying on in that vein in The Accident on the A35, he now brings in some of the existentialist flavor of Sartre with a side of Camus. The alienation, the desire for freedom, the internal darkness is all there, running throughout the entire novel. Burnet has really done an especially great job with the character of Raymond, who exemplifies the existential angst of doing and feeling what he wants to as opposed to conforming to social expectations; the same is true in the case of the elder Gorski, with the added problems of a failing home life and career which is anything but satisfying. Add into the mix that these dramas play out within the confines of the claustrophobic French town of Saint-Louis, and what may have started as a detective story turns into much more of an examination deep into the realm of the human psyche. And it's not pretty, trust me. Investigating officers want to hear from anyone who saw the crash, or has dashcam footage, to help piece together what happened. I really enjoyed The Disappearance of Adèle Bedeau (2014) and so was keen to read this 2017 follow up. This is on the face of it a crime novel, but the quality of the writing, the depth of the characterisation, the creation of place and time and the intelligence of the game the author plays with the reader all raise it so that it sits easily into the literary fiction category, in my opinion at the highest level.

The story opens when a lawyer is killed in a road accident, the titular "accident on the A35". It appears a routine accident however Georges Gorski wonders where the lawyer was prior to the accident and this query opens a can of worms which sustains the rest of the book. The road was closed while an investigation was carried out at the scene. It was clear at around 11pm.” Four other people - including an eight-year-old girl who suffered serious injuries - were taken to hospital following the crash on the A35 yesterday (January 16).The third person narrative of the books drifts between different perspectives. This is very pleasing. It allows you an insight into the characters thoughts without too much exposition. The way the narration is handled in scenes where both of the main characters feature is masterful. The introduction of these characters is seamless. 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. I approached The Accident on the A35 with no expectations either way, aware that the original manuscript by French author Raymond Brunet had been delivered to his editor in Paris by his solicitors in Mulhouse following the death of the author’s mother. (Brunet had committed suicide 22 years earlier by throwing himself in front of the train at Saint-Louis). Brunet had published The Disappearance of Adèle Bedeau, made into a film by celebrated French director Claude Chabrol, and there was excitement in the literary world that the “new” manuscript had been authenticated and was to be published.

While any follow up is unnecessary, as Chief Inspector, Gorski decides he will make some enquiries for the attractive young widow. And the inconsistencies he uncovers, coupled with a puzzling reticence displayed by the dead man’s colleagues and friends soon has Gorski intrigued, and determined to find out just what’s been going on. Meanwhile, Raymond Bethelme, the accident victim’s 17-year-old son, is conducting a sort of enquiry of his own, based on a scrap of paper found in his father’s desk drawer. Responding firefighters from Axminster and Colyton set about casualty care, while screening off the crash scene and making the vehicles and area safe. As part of the investigation, we want to hear from anyone who was travelling along this stretch of road in either direction at approximately 4.15am yesterday. When Bertrand Barthelme runs his car off the A35 into a tree one evening and dies, Inspector Georges Gorski has no reason to think it was anything other than an unfortunate accident. But Barthelme's widow thinks there's something odd about her husband having been at that spot at that time and asks Gorski to look into it a bit more. Mme Barthelme is an attractive 40-something with more than a touch of the femme fatale in this first meeting, so Gorski finds himself agreeing. Meantime, Barthelme's 17-year-old son Raymond starts a kind of investigation of his own, in an attempt to learn more about the father with whom he had always had a rather cold, distant relationship. Both investigations will head off in unexpected directions. Graeme Macrae Burnet has written a book purported to be a translation of a manuscript (one of two) sent to a publisher by fictional writer, Raymond Burnet after he committed suicide. The novel is a literary mystery in the classic French style of Georges Simenon, creator of fictional French detective Jules Maigret. Although, I haven't read any of Simenon's books I have seen the TV series Maigret based on the books and can see that the this novel captures the shadowy detective and the dark, smoky scenes in cafes and nightclubs of Maigret's world.

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Police have confirmed a man in his 70s, from Kilmington, in East Devon, died at the scene and his next of kin have been informed. Police are now appealing for witnesses and would like to hear from anyone who saw either vehicle prior to the incident or witnessed the collision or may have dashcam footage. The metafiction element of this book turns it into a work of art, and opens up a discussion about fiction and literature in general, and the way it may or may not be intertwined with the lives of the writers who wrote it. After reading this you may question other books, and which parts of them are real or fiction. It’s very poetic. Macrae Burnet becomes a character himself, that comments on and critiques the work, which to some extent, absolves him of the responsibility for any of it’s flaws. He says exactly what you are thinking at the end of the book. If it was overused it would be a cop-out, but it isn’t (to me at least, in fact I think it’s the first time I’ve seen this), so it feels very original. We’ll leave it at that before we spoil it for anyone. But it is a very interesting device which is beginning to characterise and define Macrae Burnet’s work.