The Accident on the A35

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Motorists are being advised to expect delays. Diversions have been set up taking drivers through Bridport with motorists told to allow extra time for their journey. A spokesperson for Dorset Police said: "The road has been closed between the Symondsbury and Crown roundabouts and these closures are expected to remain in place for some time. We would advise motorists to seek alternative routes while these closures are in place.

Police were called at around 1:40pm today following reports of a road traffic collision on the A35, Kilmington, Axminster between a car and a lorry," a spokesperson for Devon and Cornwall Police said. This novel is situated in Saint-Louis in France. It is is structured in two parts. The first part is the plot about how the death of Bertrand Barthelme during a car crash affects the lives of the two main protagonists. The first protagonist is Georges Gorski, a senior officer in the St Louis police force who is investigating the crash. The second is Raymond Barthelme, the son of Bertrand Barthelme. Gorski, led on by the dead man's wife, who does not believe that her husband's death was an accident, travels to a neighboring town to try and find answers about the actual cause of Barthelme's death. It appears that Barthelme had lied about his whereabouts on the night of his death.Not a word of criticism in this review because I can find nothing to criticise. I loved every lean and beautifully placed word of this slim book, and was wholly absorbed from beginning to end. It deserves and gets my highest recommendation – superb! On the same day, three people were killed in a car crash on a busy dual-carriageway on the A1 near Stamford, Lincolnshire. Accident on the A35 is the 2nd in a series, but can definitely be read as a stand-alone. I haven’t read The Disappearance of Adèle Bedeau yet and look forward to doing so. The Accident on the A35 is a literary mystery so expect the mystery to be of less importance than the characters and do not assume that it will be solved. Instead expect a well written, occasionally tongue in cheek, tale of the lives of some rather sad, confused individuals.

A spokeswoman for the South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust (SWASFT) said: “We were called at 2.17pm to an incident near Puddletown and sent three double-crewed land ambulances, a critical care car, an operations officer, a rapid response vehicle and an air ambulance." Mme Barthelme—alluring and apparently unmoved by the news—has a single question: where was her husband on the night of the accident? The answer might change nothing, but it could change everything. And Gorski sets a course for what can only be a painful truth. Once again, Graeme Macrae Burnet comes up with a clever conceit based around the discovery of a decades-old manuscript in the slush pile of a Parisian publishing house. The story in this book is Macrae Burnet’s ‘translation’ and is every bit as brilliant a concept as the Booker-nominated His Bloody Project. Indeed, all the better, in my view, for being a far more subtle take on subterfuge. Here, the author succeeds in authentically replicating the slightly formal, ever so slightly stilted language of a French-to-English translation. This is handled in such a convincing manner that it becomes a totally credible construct and to me it is the very finest thing about this very fine literary crime novel. We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused. The Accident on the A35: An Inspector Gorski Investigation” by Graeme Macrae Burnet deservedly earned accolades as a Guardian Best Crime and Thriller Book for 2017, and was long-listed for the Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year award for 2018. This highly compelling historical thriller — one of my fave genres — is beautifully described in the Publisher’s Note, which I’ll share here while awarding it 5/5!The BMW driver and a female passenger, both in their thirties and from the same family, and the Land Rover driver, in her fifties, have been treated for their non-life-threatening injuries. I’m afraid I struggled with The Accident on the A35 by Graeme Macrae Burnet. It could well have to do with the translation, but as well as being unable to get close to the characters, I couldn’t raise any enthusiasm for the plot. I can't envision another Gorski as he will likely be found dead of alcoholism with only his mother to care since he is minus his wife and home. The rider of the motorcycle – a man aged in his 50s – sadly died at the scene. His family has been informed. Road users travelling eastbound are advised to follow the Solid Diamond diversion symbol on road signs via the B3162 through Bridport and re-join the A35 at the roundabout with the A35/B3162/A3066.

Macrae Burnet’s ventriloquism of a sub-Maigret novel set in 1970 pleasantly recreates a France of francs and call boxes. The one glaring anachronism is Gorski feeling guilt about drinking wine with his lunch, which would surely have been de rigueur for a provincial detective of that time. Neatly, in a plot already resting on old books, what people are reading – Balzac, Baudelaire, Zola and Sartre – enjoyably inflects both prose and plot. The main presiding literary spirit, Simenon, would surely have approved of a tense, strange funeral scene, and the successive expectation reversals three chapters from the end. Neither Barthelme’s widow Lucette – younger than Gorski expects – nor his 16-year-old son Raymond seem moved by the news, which Gorski delivers in person on account of the man’s social standing. Lucette even seems to be flirting, discussing her sleeping arrangements – Gorski’s eyes straying here, his wife having walked out on him with their teenage daughter.A major emergency response was needed following the crash on the Puddletown bypass yesterday afternoon (Tuesday, May 24). Boris 'got caught' while others didn't but PM must STAY as he has done 'best of a bad job' [INSIGHT]

Let’s get a look,” she said, holding her hand out. I passed her the book. “Mmmm,” she murmured sarcastically, eyeing the cover. “Sounds… interesting.”Both towns are important characters in the book but it's the human characters who make it such an absorbing story. Gorski is a middle-aged man in something of a rut, but without the ambition or desire to find his way out. He is content to be the Chief of Police in Saint-Louis – a medium-size fish in a tiny pool – even if he's not particularly liked by his subordinates nor respected by those at the top of the social heap. He's less happy with the fact that his wife has just left him – he's not altogether sure why and he's not convinced that he wants to change whatever it is about himself that's led her to go. He's a decent man, but rather passively so – neither hero nor villain. It's the skill of the writing that makes this ordinary man into an extraordinary character. The front and endpapers claim that The Accident on the A35 turned up in a bundle with another unpublished Brunet manuscript. The Scottish middleman will presumably translate and annotate the third work in due course. As Macrae Burnet is careful not to specify the genre of this final text, it may turn out to be a departure – a Brunet memoir or biography of Simenon, perhaps even a guidebook to Saint-Louis – that would, presumably, further compromise the reliability of The Disappearance of Adèle Bedeau and The Accident on the A35. A five-year-old girl inside the BMW died while an eight-year-old girl who was in the same car remains in hospital with serious injuries.