Review of "The Accident: A Psychological Thriller" by S.D. Monaghan

David met Tara five years ago, when he was a 35-year-old history lecturer at Dublin's Trinity College......



.....and she was a 25-year-old student in his class.



David was very taken with the beautiful young woman, who was smart and had 'curious brown eyes, full lips, and free-falling auburn hair.' At the time, Tara was dating a working class bloke named Ryan.....



.....and David reluctantly kept his distance, even after the class ended.

Eighteen months later David happened to see Tara again, displaying her original paintings at a sidewalk art show.



David and Tara began to chat and - due to a rainstorm and happenstance - David helped Tara sell several paintings to a very rich American buyer.

Skip ahead a few years and David and Tara are married.



Tara is a wealthy, successful artist and David functions as her business manager while still teaching and pursuing his Ph.D. degree. The sudden prosperity is a big change for the couple, who grew up in rough, impoverished neighborhoods.

David and Tara - who are expecting a child - have renovated a huge home on Lawrence Court, and are about to move into 'the best house on the best street in Dublin.'





Ironically, Tara's old boyfriend Ryan is the builder who's upgrading the mansion under the direction of Gordon - a snobby blueblood architect who looks down his privileged nose at all of them.



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On the evening before David and Tara are scheduled to move into their gorgeous (but not quite completed) new house, David decides to stop by on a whim - to look the place over and revel in his good fortune. David is shocked to see Tara kissing Ryan, and - after she drives off - finds her panties on the floor.



Furious and hurt, David confronts the builder- whose tan, muscled, tattooed body is clad only in jeans. The two men argue and tussle, and Ryan falls off the unfinished balcony. Looking down, David sees that Ryan has fallen three floors into a pit, and appears to be bloody and dead.

David starts to run downstairs to check on the builder, but accidently knocks himself out. When David wakes up the next morning, there's no body and no pit. Instead, there's a patio with freshly laid limestone and travertine slabs. Ryan's workers have inadvertently buried the body!



Before long Ryan is an official missing person, and David doesn't know what to do. If he goes to the police, he'll be accused of murder. And - though David is very angry at Tara - he still wants to be with her and the baby. While David is mulling it all over, he's hit with terrible news. Someone knows he killed Ryan and wants a HUGE amount of blackmail money to keep mum. So much moola, in fact, that David and Tara will lose EVERYTHING they own and be forced to live in poverty.



What to do....what to do? That's what David has to decide. Should he confess? Kill himself? Pay the extortion money? And there's an added problem. David and Tara's neighbor, Shay, comes over to report that something under their new patio is blocking the sewer - and smelly, disgusting sludge is backing up into his house. Shay insists that the builders fix the problem immediately. If not, he'll take matters into his own hands.

The story alternates between the present - where David has to deal with Ryan's unexpected demise, and the past - where David and Tara meet and embark on their relationship. This literary device works up to a point but results in too many cliffhangers, which is annoying and impedes the continuity of the story.

The book's plot is engaging, with plenty of twists and turns - some of which the astute reader may guess (or maybe not. LOL). The villains are appropriately venomous, and I was hoping they would get their just deserts. However, I didn't find the 'good guys' totally likable either. David's 'mooning' over Tara - 'her presence, her voice, her warmth, her mind, her art, her body, her gaze' - was too adolescent and soppy for my taste.



And Tara - when confronted with her adultery - couldn't understand David's anger. 'David was suddenly a stranger to her. The David she knew would try to understand.' (Understand her shagging another - much hunkier - guy? Are you kidding me?!)

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Overall, I found this to be an enjoyable psychological thriller, good for a few hours entertainment.

Thanks to Netgalley, the author (S.D. Monaghan), and the publisher (Bookouture) for a copy of the book.

Rating: 3 stars