The Accident
(Libby/OverDrive eBook, Kindle)

*Starred Review* New York literary agent Isabel Reed plows through an anonymous manuscript in one night and immediately knows two things: The manuscript, a biography of a media mogul, will be a blockbuster, and people will die if word of its existence leaks. She's also fairly sure she knows who the author is, but he's dead. Word does leak, in New York and Hollywood, and ambitious young women in publishing quickly die violently. Isabel and her chosen editor, Jeffrey Fielder, are on the run from resourceful, relentless killers. Pavone's plot twists tirelessly, shifting focus among a large cast of well-drawn characters and using flashbacks and changes of locale (Copenhagen, Zurich, Manhattan, Hollywood, the Hamptons) to build suspense. The Accident is a somewhat more conventional thriller than Pavone's fine debut (The Expats, 2012), but he excels at developing characters' backstories. Isabel and Jeffrey, for example, are successful but frightened that changes in their business and the onset of middle age might make them has-beens, and they're both recalling the mutual attraction they once had but didn't act on. Like Isabel, many readers will read this one through the night.--Gaughan, Thomas Copyright 2010 Booklist

The contents of The Accident, a manuscript submission by an anonymous author, shock New York literary agent Isabel Reed, the heroine of Pavone's high-wire thriller-his second novel after 2012's well-received The Expats. Isabel worries that the revelations of this nonfiction work about Charlie Wolfe, a global media baron (think Rupert Murdoch crossed with Charles Foster Kane), pose a real danger. Her fears prove well founded as ruthless, powerful forces do whatever it takes to prevent the book's publication. The cold-blooded murder of someone close to Isabel is but the first of many. The cast of distinctive characters includes Hayden Gray, a Berlin-based "cultural attache" (i.e., spy), who orchestrates the effort to reclaim the manuscript; Camilla Glyndon-Browning, a subsidiary-rights director who tries to shop it to Hollywood; and, of course, the anonymous author himself. Despite the far-fetched conceit, Pavone makes the story credible, and the suspense is palpable. Agent: David Gernert, Gernert Company. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Pavone returns to the international espionage setting he created in his debut novel, The Expats. Using some continuing characters and a host of new faces, Pavone turns to the world of publishing. The delivery of an incendiary manuscript to literary agent Isabel Reed triggers a desperate race between those who want to reveal the truth and those who are willing to kill to cover it up. The action focuses on Isabel and her attempts to outmaneuver veteran spy Hayden Gray and spans the course of a single day, with gradually increasing stakes for everyone involved. Pavone deftly mixes espionage and murder with sharply drawn character studies of the increasingly cash-strapped publishing industry, cranking the tension to a fever pitch. -verdict Recommend to fans of high--octane fiction. ["Fans of popular fiction (not just thriller lovers) and all those interested in the inner workings of the publishing world will have a terrific time reading this engaging thriller," read the review of the Crown hc, LJ 12/13.]-Anna Mickelsen, Springfield City Lib., MA (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Pavone follows up his best-selling novel, The Expats (2012), with another thriller featuring some of the same characters. The action here involves a manuscript entitled The Accident, which threatens to bring down a media empire owned by Charlie Wolfe, who now aspires to a political career. While in college, Charlie had a night of drunken revelry, and he and his friend Dave, the sober designated driver, had an accident involving the death of a girl, one that implicated Charlie. Preston Wolfe, Charlie's powerful father and a former deputy director of the CIA, covered up the accident and for 25 years paid Dave off to keep his mouth shut. Although, over the years, Dave earned a cool $1 million from this deal, he began to feel guilty and so wrote the explosive manuscript. Charlie suspects that Dave's manuscript is in part a conspiracy to create a scandal and bring down the share prices for the Wolfe empire, bankrupting Wolfe and also creating a larger circle of scandal involving murky political doings over the course of Charlie's career. Frightened for his life and knowing that Charlie wants to hunt him down, Dave fakes his own suicide and changes his identity. Meanwhile, literary agent Isabel Reed recognizes the volatility of what Dave has written and is extremely careful with the manuscript, but despite her best efforts, a few more hard copies start to circulate. One is with Jeffrey Fielder, an editor and Isabel's best friend, and another is briefly "borrowed" from Fielder's desk, copied and then shopped for movie rights by sexy Camilla Glyndon-Browning. Almost everyone physically connected with the manuscript starts getting killed in Charlie's desperate attempt to quash this expos of his past. Pavone knows the formula for a best-seller and keeps the reader turning the pages.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

*Starred Review* New York literary agent Isabel Reed plows through an anonymous manuscript in one night and immediately knows two things: The manuscript, a biography of a media mogul, will be a blockbuster, and people will die if word of its existence leaks. She's also fairly sure she knows who the author is, but he's dead. Word does leak, in New York and Hollywood, and ambitious young women in publishing quickly die violently. Isabel and her chosen editor, Jeffrey Fielder, are on the run from resourceful, relentless killers. Pavone's plot twists tirelessly, shifting focus among a large cast of well-drawn characters and using flashbacks and changes of locale (Copenhagen, Zurich, Manhattan, Hollywood, the Hamptons) to build suspense. The Accident is a somewhat more conventional thriller than Pavone's fine debut (The Expats, 2012), but he excels at developing characters' backstories. Isabel and Jeffrey, for example, are successful but frightened that changes in their business and the onset of middle age might make them has-beens, and they're both recalling the mutual attraction they once had but didn't act on. Like Isabel, many readers will read this one through the night. Copyright 2014 Booklist Reviews.

Literary agent Isabel Reed has a manuscript that's fired up a pretty big crowd: her assistant, looking to shine; a rights director, looking for one last golden opportunity; a grandiose film producer; an uncertain publisher; a star editor who's Isabel's oldest, dearest friend; and a ruthless CIA operative in Copenhagen, who's determined to suppress the manuscript. Its author is a Zurich expat wanting to make amends, and the secrets spilled include some about Louise. Pavone's debut, The Expats, was a New York Times best seller and an Edgar Award winner. A repeat performance?

Pavone's second novel (after his Edgar Award-winning thriller The Expats) follows several people in the publishing industry as they handle a manuscript that promises tremendous personal gain but, as some soon learn, at risk of death. Isabel Reed, a divorced literary agent, has received a manuscript that promises to be a blockbuster. If true, the book will destroy the career of wealthy media mogul Charles Wolfe, about to launch a political career. He is prepared to have his henchman, Berlin cultural attaché and rogue CIA agent Hayden Gray, kill anyone who gets in his way. Jeff Fielder, also divorced and long enamored of Isabel, is an editor in need of a career-changing book. His boss, deeply in debt, faces a buyout by Wolfe's company. A subsidiary rights director has stolen a copy of the manuscript and heads to Hollywood with visions of grandeur. All are in great danger, not to mention the anonymous author, who may have to "die" twice to survive! VERDICT Fans of popular fiction (not just thriller lovers) and all those interested in the inner workings of the publishing world will have a terrific time reading this engaging thriller, driven by compelling portraits of desperate characters, each of whom will come to wonder if the manuscript in hand is worth the cost. [See Prepub Alert, 9/30/13.]—Ron Terpening, Univ. of Arizona, Tucson

The contents of The Accident, a manuscript submission by an anonymous author, shock New York literary agent Isabel Reed, the heroine of Pavone's high-wire thriller—his second novel after 2012's well-received The Expats. Isabel worries that the revelations of this nonfiction work about Charlie Wolfe, a global media baron (think Rupert Murdoch crossed with Charles Foster Kane), pose a real danger. Her fears prove well founded as ruthless, powerful forces do whatever it takes to prevent the book's publication. The cold-blooded murder of someone close to Isabel is but the first of many. The cast of distinctive characters includes Hayden Gray, a Berlin-based "cultural attaché" (i.e., spy), who orchestrates the effort to reclaim the manuscript; Camilla Glyndon-Browning, a subsidiary-rights director who tries to shop it to Hollywood; and, of course, the anonymous author himself. Despite the far-fetched conceit, Pavone makes the story credible, and the suspense is palpable. Agent: David Gernert, Gernert Company. (Mar.)