12:19am
A Mercedes leaves the Ritz hotel.
12:25am
A car loses control in a Paris underpass.
3.57am
Three people are pronounced dead.
3.58am
Samuel Carver realizes he's been a set up...
Tom Cain's The Accident Man starts by taking a world wide conspiracy theory and adds his fictional spin on the yarn that everybody has ready in the press. A royal scandal and so on...
Initially, the thought of another consiparcy theory was the last thing I wanted to read, yet since it was recommended by a friend (and also carries endorsements from Wilbur Smith and Lee Child) I thought I would give it a go.
From the outset Cain makes it plain that this is by no means a conspiracy theory that he is laying out for all to read but merely his mind as a novelist asking the hypothetical question "What If...?" The ways in which Cain weaves this tale are oustanding throughout and it is actually a very gripping and exciting pillow clutching thriller.
You follow the journey of ex-marine Samuel Carver, who now works for an agency that deals in making "bad things happen to worse people" as the rear cover blurb put it. Initally the reader is placed right in the middle of one these missions, to rid the world of some threat or other, to which Carver does in a rather viscious manner maybe. Still, by any means necessary this man is trained to get the job done.
What I found quite profound in this book is the fact that throughout there is no mention of any of the subject matters names. Clearly, from the blurb on the back and the subsequent events in the back, it is based around the death of Diana, Princess of Wales. Whether this is due to legal reasons or because the dead do not need naming is questionable, yet I would imagine it is solely due to the latter but it also adds to the integrity of the book. Because there are no names named, it is stating again, it is not a conspiracy theory about the death of Diana but the death of a royal.
What I found most unusual, so to speak, was the fact that although I know full well the book is not based on actual fact and more one singular event, I discovered myself actually contemplating the reality of it, or more the plausability of that said reality. Which I can conclude, is very believable. You would imagine a piece like this as being somewhat predictable, because we all know so very much about it, yet Cain completly extinguishes those conspiracies and effectively creates his own, in a fictional manner that does led you to wonder; if you are susceptible to that sort of thing. Having said that, after a while though the initial outlay of the book is the least of your thoughts as it follows many different paths and ideas that aren't directly related to the death. The death of the princess is merely a catalyst to get Carver into the particular cloak and dagger thriller.
Naturally the book covers a damsel in distress and a whole gander of bombs, blasts, terrorists, etc etc but it does it all with so much panache and to be honest, an air of authority, almost expecting you to believe this to be the truth, even though Cain has stated that this is not the case.
The scenes of what could be mis-construed as gratuitous violence are so well put and crafted in a manner that gives this book a page turner quality in the most perverse sense of the word. There aren't many books where I want to continue reading the ways in which the characters are defeated but this was a book I just couldn't put down.
The biggest surprises of all came in the "truth" being uncovered in the whodunit and the actual end of the book, or should I say where the book leaves the lead character. By no mean feat, it is totally unexpected yet makes total sense and you aren't left feeling cheated, yet you are still curious as to what happens next. Thank fully this is to be covered in a second book by Cain in the summer of 08 called "The House Of War"
I thoroughly enjoyed this book from start to finish and I recommend it to anyone who fancies a bit of action film quality thrills.
I'm reading Jurassic Park (almost finished it, it's a three poo novel) again. I probably read it every three or four years and it's a pretty decent book. 
