After The Accident by Kerry Wilkinson

An unusual, but enjoyable mystery.

Genres: Mystery
Published: 31st March, 2020
Series: N/A
Rating: 4

After the accident which tore apart her family, Emma is shocked to be invited away to a beautiful Mediterranean island – but when her mother calls her out of the blue, wanting to make amends, she can’t say no.
Julius hasn’t seen his sister Emma in years. Although he can’t ever trust her again after what she did, he’s willing to put their differences aside for the sake of their elderly parents.
Despite what happened in the past, everything is going surprisingly well – days spent sipping sangria by the pool, evenings spent forcing smiles at the dinner table – until the night Julius and Emma’s father is attacked on the beach and left for dead on the sand.
Everyone is lying about what happened on the beach that hot summer night. And when the truth is revealed, it will be more shocking than either of them ever imagined.

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First of all, I have to admit I spent way more time than necessary with getting distracted by the fact that I couldn’t pinpoint where this book was set. Glanikos Island where the story takes place doesn’t exist. I can accept made up places, but at the same time this one resembled Kerkyra (a.k.a. Corfu) a lot. Until it didn’t. The villages Ermones, Vatos, Agios Georgios and Kokkini are on Kerkyra, but contrary to our fictional island, Kerkyra is not volcanic. Also, not a single one of the named locals had a Greek sounding name, in spite of this being a Greek island. Where are we?!

See? I’m still sort of obsessing over this. Ugh. *throws up arms in the air*

Other than this, I liked this book a lot. It’s written in sort of an interview style (those of you who read Daisy Jones will know what I mean) as the characters are supposedly talking to the crew who is making a documentary about their holiday and the fateful trip causing the death of the father’s business partner, Alan nine years ago at the same spot.

It’s basically a he said she said type of thing that is so typical to actual documentaries. I always have to admire the editing skills of those people, how they are able to pick and arrange those snippets for the most dramatic effect and confuse the shit out of the viewer.

In this case I thought everyone being interviewed was pretty much a dickhead, apart from Emma and her 8-year-old nieces. Although those girls were proper shifty if you ask me.

I haven’t been feeling like reading much these past few weeks, but I zipped through this one in a matter of days. There was always something new to consider, another mystery just around the corner keeping me on my toes. As in real life, the conclusion may not satisfy everyone, but for me the way the author finished the book was the perfect ending.

“And that, I suppose is the biggest problem. There is no version of this story that involves absolutes. Nobody who is blameless.”

Anyway, it was awesome. Read it, if you don’t believe me.