Belinda Bauer’s Rubbernecker has won the 2014 Theakstons Old Peculier crime novel of the year award, with one of the judges describing it as “original and compelling” and “utterly absorbing”. Val McDermid, notable Scottish crime author, says in her review of the book: “Breathtaking. I read this and wished I’d written it.”
Read the first chapter of Rubbernecker in this excerpt shared on Amazon to be introduced to the peculiar thoughts of Patrick Fort – a medical student with Asperger’s Syndrome who finds himself in the midst of an ongoing murder trial:
PART ONE
Dying is not as easy as it looks in the movies.
In the movies, a car skids on ice. It slews across the road, teeters on the edge of the cliff.
It drops; it crumples and arcs – and finally stops against a tree, wheels up, like a smoking turtle. Other drivers squeal to a stop and leave their doors open as they rush to the precipice and stare in horror, while the car –
The car pauses for dramatic effect. And then bursts into flames.
The people step back, they shield their faces, they turn away.
In the movies, they don’t even have to say it.
In the movies, the driver is dead.I don’t remember much, but I do remember that the Pina Colada song was on the radio. Pina Colada and getting caught in the rain.
I hate that song; I always have.
I wonder whether I’ll tell the police the truth about what happened. When I can.
Book details
- Rubbernecker by Belinda Bauer
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EAN: 9780552779494
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Image courtesy Harrowgate