Chris Pavone’s follow-up to his Edgar Award-winning debut, The Expats, is guaranteed to leave you sleep deprived. The action of The Accident revolves around the appearance of an explosive manuscript, purported to be an insider’s view of the life of media star and political hopeful Charlie Wolfe, a fictional combination of Rupert Murdoch and Bill O’Reilly. The anonymous manuscript, which Wolfe, and certain operatives in the intelligence community with whom he has cooperated over the years, do not wish the public to see, has landed in the hands of agent Isabel Reed, who in turn has pitched it to editor Jeffrey Fielder. Thus begins a lethal race against time, as Wolfe and his deadly allies seek to suppress the book by any means necessary before its contents can become more widely disseminated.

Fans of The Expats will be heartened to know that certain characters appearing in that novel also appear in The Accident, Pavone’s way of establishing a consistent universe among his works. The two books could not be more dissimilar, however, as Pavone’s debut was character driven, while his sophomore effort is propelled more by its plot—readers never really get to know the players in The Accident too deeply, as Pavone bounces madly from set piece to set piece, leaving this reader agape at the carnage. But its blistering pace and myriad surprises makes The Accident a highly effective thriller.