Police have confirmed a man in his 70s, from Kilmington, in East Devon, died at the scene and his next of kin have been informed.

Macrae Burnet’s ventriloquism of a sub-Maigret novel set in 1970 pleasantly recreates a France of francs and call boxes. The one glaring anachronism is Gorski feeling guilt about drinking wine with his lunch, which would surely have been de rigueur for a provincial detective of that time. Neatly, in a plot already resting on old books, what people are reading – Balzac, Baudelaire, Zola and Sartre – enjoyably inflects both prose and plot. The main presiding literary spirit, Simenon, would surely have approved of a tense, strange funeral scene, and the successive expectation reversals three chapters from the end.Once again Graeme Macrae Burnet adds a foreword and afterword which explain how the story is a rediscovered lost manuscript by the book's actual author, Raymond Brunet (who also wrote The Disappearance of Adèle Bedeau). It all adds another layer of playfulness to a very satisfying read. Four other people - including an eight-year-old girl who suffered serious injuries - were taken to hospital following the crash on the A35 yesterday (January 16). A man in his 70s is believed to have fallen before a collision with a van. Paramedics attended but sadly the man was pronounced dead at the scene.

The Accident on the A35 is a darkly humorous, subtle, and sophisticated novel that burrows into the psyches of its characters and explores the dark corners of life in a sleepy town.”

The Accident on the A35 is the second book in the Georges Gorski series by award-winning Scottish author, Graeme Macrae Burnet. It looked pretty straightforward: Bertrand Bethelme’s Mercedes had run off the A35 into a tree, sometime after 9pm on Tuesday night. He probably fell asleep at the wheel. But after confirming his identity the following morning, his widow, Lucette raised a query: where had her husband been that night? His usual Tuesday night dinner with his club would not put him anywhere near the A35. The proprietor carefully placed a bottle on a paper doily in front of him. Then he lit a cigarette himself. Usually in such a situation, the proprietor of a bar will busy himself with some menial task- polishing glasses or wiping down surfaces - so that his customer does not feel self conscious about drinking alone. Or he will feel the need to offer some banal remarks. But the proprietor of the cafe on the corner of Rue Saint-Fiacre did neither of these things. He simply stood behind the counter, watching Gorski with a placid expression.” Colyton also set about making the car and lorry involved safe so neither vehicle posed a further danger to our crews.” Not a word of criticism in this review because I can find nothing to criticise. I loved every lean and beautifully placed word of this slim book, and was wholly absorbed from beginning to end. It deserves and gets my highest recommendation – superb!