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 12-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. In these stories, the smallest moments are infused with life and vibrating with menace. 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 accidents happen, and death is always close at hand.