The Accident Man

November 12, 2007
The pseudonymous Cain, a British journalist, has come up with a clever premise for his first novel. One summer night in 1997, Samuel Carver, an extremely capable assassin who only targets bad guys, is in a Paris tunnel ready to make a hit. He causes a speeding black Mercedes to smash into a stone pillar, leaving the car’s principal passenger, a dangerous terrorist, he’s been told, undoubtedly dead. Moments later, Carver himself is on the run from a Russian thug. Only after escaping the Russian does Carver realize he’s caused the death of Princess Diana. Carver vows revenge on those who set him up. A number of spy organizations are involved as well as several intermediaries, all of whom Carver must work his way through before finding who’s behind the conspiracy. A likable hero and nicely detailed action help offset a predictable and at times overwrought romance between Carver and the Russian’s female accomplice. Hopefully, Cain will keep the mayhem and soft-pedal the love interest in his next Samuel Carver thriller.

It's particularly hard to create an effective thriller surrounding an event as thoroughly examined as the death, in August 1997, of the most famous and photogenic woman in the world. Tom Cain has done it though, with conviction and power, imagining a who, a how, and a why of the car crash in a Paris tunnel that saddened the planet. John Lee's compressed and controlled delivery, coupled with his impressive ear and range as an actor, allows a complete suspension of disbelief as Samuel Carver, who was told by those well-bred people at MI5 that he was to assassinate a terrorist, discovers what he has actually done, a realization that is followed closely by the knowledge that his handlers have no intention of letting him live to tell the tale. B.G. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine