In The Spotlight: Graeme Macrae Burnet’s The Accident on the A35

Hello, All,

Welcome to another edition of In The Spotlight. Some crime novels arguably also fall into the category of literary fiction. In those cases, the emphasis is as much on characters’ journeys as it is on the mystery at hand. That’s the sort of novel that Graeme Macrae Burnet’s The Accident on the A35 is, so let’s turn today’s spotlight on that novel.

As the story begins, an attorney named Bertrand Barthelme drives his car off the A35 into a tree. As the local chief of police, Georges Gorski goes to the scene of the crime, and at first, puts it in the category of a terrible accident. Perhaps the victim fell asleep at the wheel or was impaired. But Berthelme’s widow, Lucette, says that he shouldn’t have been on that road at that time. According to her, he had gone out to dinner with colleagues. There was no…