The Accident

by S D Monaghan

[Leah]

In my bid to clear my Kindle of books (a mammoth task in itself), I have taken to reading my Kindle books in alphabetical order. The Accident was next up on my list and it was a pretty intriguing read. I knew very little about the book going in – nothing at all, in fact, because while I will have read the synopsis when I downloaded the book, I don’t always remember what a book is about (and I think that works, because you have no preconceived notions). All I knew was this was a thriller, and there was clearly going to be an accident of some kind, if the title was anything to go by!

The Accident opens with David finding his wife, Tara, in a compromising position with their builder Ryan, before quickly escalating into a fight between the two men that ends with Ryan dead in a pit, having fallen from a third storey window with no balcony. Panic ensues (obviously) with David disbelieving that he’s killed someone. And so starts a tale filled with blackmail, intrigue, and wondering just what you do when you’ve accidentally committed murder. For what the book is, it’s quite drawn out – the chapters are long (achingly long, so long that you’re literally begging your Kindle to just end the chapter already, as if there should be a mandate that each chapter cannot comprise 10% of the book) but it’s fascinating. There’s a very small cast of characters – David, Tara, Ryan, Gordon (their architect), Ryan’s wife whose name I have already forgotten but could be Christine?

It’s a very claustrophobic book – it takes place mostly in Tara and David’s swish new house or where David works, and you just feel suffocated a bit. It’s intense, yet the writing is written quite lazily, so it just meanders along, slowly building to the ending. The Accident really grips you, S.D. Monaghan is a brilliant writer, he kind of lulls you in a bit and then wham! Things pick up and start happening at a quite alarming pace. At first you think this is just about covering up Ryan’s death but as more people come out of the woodwork looking for Ryan – dodgy people, and people demand ransoms for keeping the death a secret, you realise it’s so much more and while you might think a lot of it hinges on fate, it actually all comes together at the end and makes so much sense.

The ending lacks a tiny bit of plausibility for me – if only because the way it all pans out in those final couple of pages make it sound like it’s all going to be okay, as if there was no investigation, but otherwise it was a brilliant ending. Filled with all kinds of madness that I could barely keep up with, yet couldn’t look away from. I was incredibly surprised where the ending went – I never for one second believed it would go that way, and I’m usually pretty savvy on picking up on plot twists in advance, but I was fooled! S.D. Monaghan fooled me good. I really enjoyed The Accident. It was a slow thriller, not very fast paced, but massively gripping nevertheless. I actually think the slow pace made it more gripping because you were just waiting for the other shoe to drop. I’m intrigued what S.D. Monaghan writes next because this was certainly memorable!