A man in his 70s is believed to have fallen before a collision with a van. Paramedics attended but sadly the man was pronounced dead at the scene. The A303 at Broadway was shut both ways for 11 hours following a "serious" collision today Thursday, November 23. According to National Highways South West, the busy A-road was closed between the A358 Horton Cross and the A30/A35 Honiton.

Graeme Macrae Burnet has written a book purported to be a translation of a manuscript (one of two) sent to a publisher by fictional writer, Raymond Burnet after he committed suicide. The novel is a literary mystery in the classic French style of Georges Simenon, creator of fictional French detective Jules Maigret. Although, I haven't read any of Simenon's books I have seen the TV series Maigret based on the books and can see that the this novel captures the shadowy detective and the dark, smoky scenes in cafes and nightclubs of Maigret's world. Let’s get a look,” she said, holding her hand out. I passed her the book. “Mmmm,” she murmured sarcastically, eyeing the cover. “Sounds… interesting.” Rural East Devon Police praised members of the public who ran to help in the moments after the vehicles crashed saying their swift actions – giving first aid and directing traffic away – deserved ‘tribute and commendation’. A number of emergency services rushed to the scene as a member of the public performed CPR on Camilla. The 34-year-old from Malmesbury in Wiltshire was treated at the scene but was pronounced dead at 8.20pm.

Key Events

We were called shortly after 4.30am yesterday (Thursday 23 November) to reports of a collision between the Southfields roundabout and Shave Lane. His Bloody Project was presented as a collection of documents unearthed by Burnet as he traced his family tree. This time he’s the translator of a French writer named Raymond Brunet, who after publishing The Disappearance of Adèle Bedeau killed himself in 1992. Two decades later, on the death of his mother, lawyers acting for Raymond (mark the name) sent his publisher a parcel containing the manuscript of L’Accident sur l’A35. The metafiction element of this book turns it into a work of art, and opens up a discussion about fiction and literature in general, and the way it may or may not be intertwined with the lives of the writers who wrote it. After reading this you may question other books, and which parts of them are real or fiction. It’s very poetic. Macrae Burnet becomes a character himself, that comments on and critiques the work, which to some extent, absolves him of the responsibility for any of it’s flaws. He says exactly what you are thinking at the end of the book. If it was overused it would be a cop-out, but it isn’t (to me at least, in fact I think it’s the first time I’ve seen this), so it feels very original. We’ll leave it at that before we spoil it for anyone. But it is a very interesting device which is beginning to characterise and define Macrae Burnet’s work. Investigating officers want to hear from anyone who saw the crash, or has dashcam footage, to help piece together what happened. I really enjoyed The Disappearance of Adèle Bedeau (2014) and so was keen to read this 2017 follow up.

Gorski had no time for the idea of human nature. It was a meaningless idea people used to absolve themselves of responsibility for their own actions… There’s something a bit Wes Anderson about Graeme Macrae Burnet. There’s a dry humour to his characters. It’s hard not to love. He skilfully portrays absurdity and contradictions of characters that have a very strong sense of self.

LEGAL NOTICE

They said: “We would like to take this opportunity to praise the actions of those members of the public who swiftly ran to assist with first aid and immediate traffic control. The A35 remains closed in both directions at Ofwell near Honiton, Devon following the collision involving numerous vehicles.

The actions of those first on scene is often mentioned in relation to the emergency services, but more often than not, it is the public who are there at that initial stage. Macrae Burnet’s ventriloquism of a sub-Maigret novel set in 1970 pleasantly recreates a France of francs and call boxes. The one glaring anachronism is Gorski feeling guilt about drinking wine with his lunch, which would surely have been de rigueur for a provincial detective of that time. Neatly, in a plot already resting on old books, what people are reading – Balzac, Baudelaire, Zola and Sartre – enjoyably inflects both prose and plot. The main presiding literary spirit, Simenon, would surely have approved of a tense, strange funeral scene, and the successive expectation reversals three chapters from the end. I have still yet to read His Bloody Project (2015), Graeme Macrae Burnet's other book, which many people have told me is marvellous. I'll be putting that right very soon. Once Colyton arrived, they assisted our crews with scene safety and management of unaffected members of the public. As part of the investigation, we want to hear from anyone who was travelling along this stretch of road in either direction at approximately 4.15am yesterday.

A35

You can stay up-to-date on the top news near you with Dorset Live's FREE newsletters – sign up to our newsletters here . This novel – like Adele Bedeau – reintroduces the reader to Georges Gorski, the police chief of an Alsace town who has married above his station…and is now estranged from his wife. When a wealthy solicitor named Bertrand Barhelme suffers a fatal car crash, Georges Gorski must deliver the news to his youngish widow, Lucette, and their teenage son Raymond. Camilla was a former Beaufort Pony Club member, and her mother Sue has worked tirelessly for the Pony Club for many years. Our thoughts and prayers are with the family at this very sad time." And that's all I'll say for the story itself: it would be shame to give too much away. A couple weeks ago I wrote of Pierre Lemaitre's Three Days and a Life that it reminded me of Simenon and Highsmith, only to wonder this week at my narrow range of reference – because this book really reminded me of Simenon, almost to the point of parody. Now I suspect that was exactly the point. Faux-Maigret. Once again, Graeme Macrae Burnet comes up with a clever conceit based around the discovery of a decades-old manuscript in the slush pile of a Parisian publishing house. The story in this book is Macrae Burnet’s ‘translation’ and is every bit as brilliant a concept as the Booker-nominated His Bloody Project. Indeed, all the better, in my view, for being a far more subtle take on subterfuge. Here, the author succeeds in authentically replicating the slightly formal, ever so slightly stilted language of a French-to-English translation. This is handled in such a convincing manner that it becomes a totally credible construct and to me it is the very finest thing about this very fine literary crime novel.