CRASH

A Scottish solicitor’s self-appointed holiday is ended by his attempt to provide proper documentation for an heiress injured in an accident—and to trace the sinister cause of the accident.

Aloysius Barrow and his sister Delia have returned from years in New Zealand to claim their shared inheritance, a sheep farm in Inverness. As they’re driving toward the farm, their car is struck by an off-white van and dashed against a stone wall. Ally is killed; Dell survives with some broken bones. Unfortunately, the proofs of her identity she needs to claim her legacy—which the death of her brother has tripled in value—have been destroyed in the fire that consumed the car they hired. Fortunately, the first locals on the scene after the accident are physiotherapist Grace Campbell, who offers expert advice about Dell’s recovery, and her next-door neighbor, solicitor Julian Custer, who’s just the person to help Dell obtain a duplicate passport, driver’s license and ATM card so that she can establish her identity. With a little luck, in fact, Julian may just provide Dell with some amatory attention, a welcome distraction that might offset the threat to them both from the increasingly desperate thieves who were driving the van that ended Ally’s life.

Veteran Hammond (Hit and Run, 2008, etc.) makes his hero and heroine appealing enough, but the two sides of the case never mesh, and the identification and pursuit of the criminals is even less interesting than the challenge of providing Dell with a new paper identity.