In An Accident in August, Laurence Cossé takes one of the most famous news events of recent world history as the starting point for a novel as intelligent as it is gripping. On the now infamous night of August 31, 1997, a young woman’s life is thrown into turmoil when fortune places her at the scene of the fatal car crash in which Lady Diana Frances Spencer, then Princess of Wales, lost her life. Scared and alone, she flees the scene of the accident. While there are no immediate repercussions resulting from her flight, as news of the tragic event spreads and TV stations, papers and radio talk of nothing else for days, she is assailed by a growing sense of guilt. Terrified of being found out, questioned, arrested, and thrown headfirst into a media whirlwind,she finds herself paralyzed by fear, paranoia, and a growing sense of remorse.

Wonderfully paced, suspenseful and dramatic, An Accident in August is the story of an ordinary person radically changed by her chance involvement in an extraordinary event. She unwittingly becomes a part of history. Yet history itself, not to mention the police and the media,ultimately fails to identify her, and she remains a figure cloaked in mystery.

Laurence Cossé
Laurence Cossé worked as a journalist before devoting herself entirely to fiction. She is the author of Bitter Almonds (Europa, 2013) and An Accident in August (Europa, 2011). A Novel Bookstore is her ninth novel. She lives in France.

• Aug 15 2011
  Kirkus: "admirably translated...telling and true"
  
• Jul 4 2011
  Publishers Weekly: "Cossé does a fine job presenting inner torment"