The Accident by Chris Pavone
The Accident was my book club’s latest pick. And it was a good choice – everyone really liked it.
The book begins with an anonymous author. He has written a novel titled The Accident, a novel that reveals secrets, a novel that he may be killed for writing. In New York, literary agent Isabel Reed has just finished devouring the manuscript in one night. She knows the manuscript, an exposé of a media mogul, will be a bestseller, but she also knows people will die if the manuscript is published. She shares the manuscript with Jeffrey Fielder, an editor she has worked with before.
However soon, Isabel and Jeffrey are on the run, running from a veteran CIA agent whose mission is to kill anyone who’s read the manuscript and knows of its existence, to keep the secrets from going public. Other people have been killed and Isabel and Jeffrey worry that they will be next.
This was a very fast-paced book, a suspenseful thriller. I started reading it late at night, fell asleep, and then woke up early the next day to finish. I definitely wanted to find out who the anonymous author was, who would be murdered, what the secret was that would be exposed, and just why was this CIA agent on Isabel’s and Jeffrey’s tail.
Pavone switches viewpoints from different characters and different locations in each chapter. There is a wide range of characters, all with their own agendas and backgrounds. The author of The Accident is never given a name; he is just called the anonymous author. And little by little, pieces of the secret are revealed throughout the book in the form of excerpts from the manuscript.
I really enjoyed this book, perhaps because it takes place in the literary world. I think I will give Pavone’s first novel, The Expats, a try.
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