A short story collection as relentlessly intense and darkly compelling as Batacan’s
debut, the Filipino crime landmark Smaller and Smaller Circles
F.H. Batacan’s first novel, Smaller and Smaller Circles, was an instant classic when it was
published in 1999, a masterpiece of Filipino crime that won the Philippine Book Award. In
this, her second work of fiction, she gives us a far-ranging collection that explores the darkest
corners of human experience, depicting with pitch black humor the systems of class and
politics that her characters are trapped in, and the moments violence—accidental or
otherwise—that can, at any moment, shatter their lives.
The driver for a wealthy family witnesses the aftermath of the disappearance of the family’s
twelve-year-old son. A field investigator for the World Health Organization travels the world
giving presentations about a biomedical enzyme that will lead to the extinction of the human
race. And Father Augusto Saenz, the Jesuit priest and forensic anthropologist from Smaller
and Smaller Circles, returns to investigate the murder of a woman whose secretive life holds
the key to her death.
Sure to cement Batacan’s status as a crime writer of global status, Accidents Happen is a
probing and relentless series of dark excursions into worlds where the smallest moments are
infused with life and vibrating with menace, and death is always close at hand.
Cart
Blog