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THE ACCIDENT by Todd Strasser

THE ACCIDENT

By

Pub Date: Oct. 4th, 1988
ISBN: 0595396526
Publisher: Delacorte

A simplistic story about a teen-ager who compromises his principles as the lesser of two evils-but only temporarily. Five teens on a drunken joyride run off a mountain road. The four dead include Chris, ne'er-do-well owner of the vehicle, and Bobby, son of a prominent businessman and nephew of a gubernatorial candidate. Though Chris and his permissive mother are generally blamed for the tragedy, classmate Matt Thompson begins to suspect that the whole story hasn't come out. His suspicions are confirmed when he can't get straight answers from the police officer in charge of the case, and various people tell him, gently and otherwise, to lay off. When at last he finds evidence that Bobby had been driving that night, Matt confronts Bobby's father, demanding to know why the facts have been suppressed. He gets his answer, with a dilemma: Bobby's uncle is running against a corrupt incumbent who might get enough political mileage out of the accident to win the election. So Matt, reluctantly, chooses discretion. The author makes that choice as easy as possible: the current governor is as rotten as they come, and his opponent doesn't know about the cover-up; Chris's mother is told the truth; nobody living is victimized. Strasser compounds the story's superficiality in an epilogue when Matt changes his mind and breaks the story after the election. More readers are likely to hear the false note in this than will be pleased to see the Truth Made Known.