The Accident by Daniel Hurst is a psych thriller that is more thriller than psych. It has a great premise but doesn’t entirely deliver. However, if you go in knowing what you’re getting, you’ll enjoy the book.
The best part of the plot is in the first 80 pages. The author does a fantastic job of building the tension to the accident that guides the rest of the story. It was palpable from each of the character’s points of view.
In this opening part, I think we are meant to feel sorry for Carl, as he has gotten himself into a mess – but it is nothing compared to what is about to happen to him later. The same goes for Jo.
The author has a nice “wait, what” moment when the story transitions to after the accident. Maybe I wasn’t reading close enough, but I thought one thing was happening, when it was actually something else.
That makes sense in the context of the plot.
However, the issue I have is that the reader knows within those first 80 pages what actually happened. So, the rest of the story is more of a “who will find out the truth and when” which is why I said it is more thriller than psych thriller.
There is no surprise in terms of the original accident, so a lot of the middle of the book is the guilty party worrying about when the other character will realize what is actually happening. It does get a bit tedious.
The author saves a few twists for the end which suddenly make one of the characters unreliable. I didn’t get the feeling of this through the rest of the book, and I wish more had been done to create this doubt around the character.
The biggest twist at the end is also a head-scratcher because the person responsible seems to forget exactly how they discovered info about the initial accident and gets caught up the exact same way.
Now, that end event itself is a bit of a shocker. But the character responsible tosses it off like it really wasn’t a big deal and just had to happen. I didn’t get that feel for the character throughout either.
As I said at the beginning of this review, if you go into it knowing that you will be reading more of a thriller, when will the other shoe drop type of story, you will definitely enjoy it. Just don’t keep waiting for a typical psych thriller twist. It doesn’t happen.
Instagram: danielhurstbooks/
Twitter: dhurstbooks
Author Bio
Daniel Hurst writes psychological thrillers and loves to tell tales about unusual things happening to normal people. He has written all his life, making the progression from handing scribbled stories to his parents as a boy to writing full length novels in his thirties. He lives in the North West of England and when he isn’t writing, he is usually watching a game of football in a pub where his wife can’t find him.
Thank you so much for taking part in the tour and sharing your review x