A superb novel about secrets, survival and the need to atone

At a loose end after college, Ellis Barstow drifts back to his hometown and takes a job as a reconstructionist - investigating and recreating the details of fatal car accidents. Ellis forms a bond with his boss John Boggs, who believes that if two cars meeting at an intersection can be called an accident, then anything can - where we live, what we do, even who we fall in love with.

For Ellis these things are certainly no accident and he harbours two secrets of his own. The car crash that killed his half-brother is a memory that still haunts him, and his feelings for John's wife threaten to blow apart the men's lives. As Ellis tries to make sense of his own life, the story's momentum builds to a desperate race towards confrontation, reconciliation and survival.