Title: The Accident
Release Date: March 11/2014
Adquired: Print ARC provided by publisher
Goodreads: ADD
Purchase: Amazon/Indigo/Book Depository
From the author of the New York Times-bestselling and Edgar Award-winning The Expats.
As dawn approaches in New York, literary agent Isabel Reed is turning the final pages of a mysterious, anonymous manuscript, racing through the explosive revelations about powerful people, as well as long-hidden secrets about her own past. In Copenhagen, veteran CIA operative Hayden Gray, determined that this sweeping story be buried, is suddenly staring down the barrel of an unexpected gun. And in Zurich, the author himself is hiding in a shadowy expat life, trying to atone for a lifetime’s worth of lies and betrayals with publication of The Accident, while always looking over his shoulder.
Over the course of one long, desperate, increasingly perilous day, these lives collide as the book begins its dangerous march toward publication, toward saving or ruining careers and companies, placing everything at risk—and everyone in mortal peril. The rich cast of characters—in publishing and film, politics and espionage—are all forced to confront the consequences of their ambitions, the schisms between their ideal selves and the people they actually became.
The action rockets around Europe and across America, with an intricate web of duplicities stretching back a quarter-century to a dark winding road in upstate New York, where the shocking truth about the accident itself is buried.
Gripping, sophisticated, layered, and impossible to put down, The Accident proves once again that Chris Pavone is a true master of suspense.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Who knew the book publishing world was so cut throat...literally. As a bookseller, it was an absolute pleasure to indulge myself in a story line that was at once SO relatable, yet filled with so many details I had zero knowledge on. The Accident took a process, that in reality, can seem so mundane to the masses, and turned it into an action-packed, life or death situation that I couldn't tear my eyes away from.
It begins with Isabel Reed as it's first reader, but as The Accident progresses, it seems like everyone who is anyone in the book publishing world, is being roped into the mysterious manuscript bomb that is 'The Accident' by Anonymous: a tell-all book that could be the fall of internationally known media mogul, Charlie Wolfe. Told in the span of one day, and divided into 3 parts (morning, afternoon, and night), The Accident doesn't let up for a single paragraph. Jobs were lost, people were killed, and secrets were revealed that would scandalize a nation.
A suspenseful tone was established right from the start of this book, and tensions were the exact amount of high needed. I was already dying to know who Anonymous was, and I wasn't even past the prologue. Told in alternating points of view, my favourite kind, there was a chance to get into the minds of everyone involved. It was a wild, and deadly, goose chase, with the most sought after target being the hardest one to reach: Anonymous. Pavone's writing was electrifying, and wholly satisfied both the book, and mystery lover, in me. There was SO much insight into the publishing world, never mind that a lot of it had to have been exaggerated for the narrative's sake, but my GOD, was it fascinating. The publishing process is made to sound seemingly never-ending, and according The Accident, downright painful at times, and I loved it, I LOVED that we were given a backstage pass into the mechanics of that world.
There were moments of history interspersed, through sneak peaked excerpts from the manuscript, and in the plethora of facts provided by Pavone: history on New York, Germany, politics, book publishing, cities, architecture, and the list can very well go on. It integrated perfectly into the story, and didn't stop the suspense from driving forward, hard and fast. I was definitely on the edge of my seat, wondering HOW in the heck any one character was going to find their way out of a deadly predicament.
Would the manuscript, ultimately, get published? Thrown into the hungry hands of a world hell-bent on devouring gossip, and scandal? It was nerve-wracking to have to wait until the end to find out the big reveal. Chris Pavone did not disappoint, and drew us a conclusion that will shock you for PAGES.
I am definitely going to pass this book along to my co-workers. EVERYONE involved with books needs to read The Accident. Everyone who loves a damn good mystery and suspenseful narrative needs to read this book. I can almost guarantee you'll be thankful you did!
Challenges: Goodreads 100 Book Goal
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chris Pavone’s first novel, The Expats, was published in 2012, and was a New York Times and international bestseller, with nearly twenty foreign editions and a major film deal. The Expats was nominated for a Los Angeles Times Book Prize and a Macavity, and awards from the Strand Magazine Critics Circle, the Mystery Booksellers Association, and the International Thriller Writers, and received the 2013 Edgar Award and the 2013 Anthony Award for Best First Novel.
Chris grew up in New York City and attended Midwood High School in Brooklyn and then Cornell University. He worked at a number of publishing houses over nearly two decades, most notably as an editor at Clarkson Potter, where he specialized in cookbooks; in the late nineties, he wrote a little book called The Wine Log. He is married and the father of twin schoolboys, and they all live in New York City and on the North Fork of Long Island.
Contact Links
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thank-you to Lisa from TLC Book Tours for hosting this tour, and to Crown Publishing for sending me a print copy to review!
Cut-throat indeed! I'd be way out of my league, that's for sure.
ReplyDeleteThanks for being on the tour! I'm featuring your review on TLC's Facebook page today.