First published 2009
A truck careens across five lanes of London traffic on what started as an ordinary afternoon. The crash sends multiple vehicles spinning into chaos. At the hospital, staff prepare for the incoming wounded while families gather to wait for news. Dr. James Morrison faces an impossible choice between treating the injured and protecting his secret affair with a young woman. A groom races against time to reach his wedding ceremony. Margaret, a widow, waits to discover if her long-lost love will survive to meet her again after decades apart. Among the victims and survivors, each person carries private hopes that now hang by a thread. The mysterious hitchhiker who witnessed the truck's deadly swerve has vanished without a trace. Only this missing stranger knows what really caused the accident. As the day unfolds, the crash becomes the center of a web connecting strangers whose lives will never be the same.
Genres: fiction, drama, literary-fiction, contemporary
Vibes: emotional-atmospheric, fast-paced, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, unreliable-narrator
Setting: London
Period: 21st-century
608 pages · Hardcover · Doubleday
Content warnings: death