Selected as an Amazon.ca Best Book of 2013, a Canada Reads Top 40 Pick, and a NOW Magazine Book of the Year

An accusation, regardless of truth, has its own life when let loose in the world.

Accusation, hailed by the Globe and Mail as "a psychological thriller . . . deeply considered, calm on the surface yet, on closer reading, full of ambiguities," again proves Bush to be one of Canada's finest authors. Examining the impracticability of determining "truth," Bush crafts a tale the Montreal Gazette believes "could almost be a crime novel of the Scandinavian variety, striding headlong into the murkier reaches of human motivation."

While in Copenhagen, journalist Sara Wheeler happens upon a touring Ethiopian circus. After a friend begins a documentary about the circus, unsettling charges begin to float to the surface — disturbing tales of sexual and physical abuse. Accounts and anecdotes mount, denunciations fly, and while we strive to untangle the narrative slipknots, the concept of "truth" begins to unravel.

Travelling from Canada to Ethiopia and Australia, Accusation follows a network of lives that intersect with life-altering consequence, painfully revealing that the best of intentions can still lead to disaster.

Catherine Bush is the author of five novels. Her work has been critically acclaimed, published internationally, and shortlisted for numerous awards. Her most recent novel, Blaze Island, was a Globe and Mail and Writers’ Trust of Canada Best Book of the Year, and the Hamilton Reads 2021 Selection. Her other novels include the Canada Reads longlisted Accusation; the Trillium Award shortlisted Claire's Head; the national bestselling The Rules of Engagement, which was also named a New York Times Notable Book and a L.A. Times Best Book of the Year; and Minus Time, shortlisted for the City of Toronto Book Award. The recipient of numerous fellowships, Bush has been Writer-in-Residence/Landhaus Fellow at the Rachel Carson Centre for Environment and Society in Munich and a Fiction Meets Science Fellow at the HWK in Delmenhorst, Germany. An Associate Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Guelph, she lives in Toronto and in an old schoolhouse in Eastern Ontario.

Catherine Bush's profile page

• Joint winner, NOW Magazine Book of the Year
• Joint winner, Canada Reads Top 40 Pick
• Joint winner, Amazon.ca Top Book

"At the heart of Accusation — and the source of its suspense — is the desire to see justice done in a situation where truth is elusive."

Anne Michaels

"Accusation is a tale of risk told in an assured and accomplished voice: compelling, unsettling, haunting."

<i>Buried in Print</i>

"A compelling novel that is an exploration of the complex ethical arena of accusations... Accusation is also an homage to the transformative powers of the circus, the beauty and possibility of beginning again."

<i>Vancouver Sun</i>

"Bush has put her novelist's finger on something difficult and important."

Susan Swan

"In this tense, intimate mystery, Bush examines the relationship between guilt and perception, using characters so vivid they captivate from the first page."

<i>PRISM International</i>

"Concentric circles spread steadily from the ethical dilemma at the novel's core, growing in depth and implication right up until a perfectly pitched and exquisitely surprising ending. Critical acclaim has never been in short supply for Bush, but there's a sense that Accusation, with a bit of good fortune, could also be her commercial breakthrough. ... Be assured that Accusation is that rare beast: a literary novel with the page-turning properties of the best genre fiction."

Postmedia News

"Concentric circles spread steadily from the ethical dilemma at the novel's core, growing in depth and implication right up until a perfectly pitched and exquisitely surprising ending. Critical acclaim has never been in short supply for Bush, but there's a sense that Accusation, with a bit of good fortune, could also be her commercial breakthrough. ... Be assured that Accusation is that rare beast: a literary novel with the page-turning properties of the best genre fiction."

<i>Calgary Herald</i>

"Refusing to put her characters into cardboard compartments, Bush reflects the messy truth of real life."

<i>Telegraph-Journal</i>

"Bush not only writes vividly about Toronto and Africa, evoking the children's gymnastic talents with great energy, but she gets to the heart of journalism's essential dilemmas, too."

<i>NOW Magazine</i>

"Bush has put her novelist's finger on something difficult and important."

Susan Swan

"One of 2013's finest fiction offerings."

<i>Salty Ink</i>

"Utterly compelling and readable... Catherine Bush draws us inexorably into a world marked by secrets, complicity, the unknown, and ultimately hope."

Gil Adamson

"Be assured that Accusation is that rare beast: a literary novel with the page-turning properties of the best genre fiction. View it from a slightly oblique angle, in fact, and it could almost be a crime novel of the Scandinanvian variety, Henning Mankell or Karen Fossum striding headlong into the murkier reaches of human motivation."

<i>Montreal Gazette</i>

"A persistent tapping at the complexities of prejudice — the accusations we harbour in our hearts — brings an unnerving friction to Accusation.

<i>Globe and Mail</i>

"The novel is a pager-turner in a way and a kind of detective story. Unlike most page-turners and much detective fiction, however, Bush's realistic prose narrative is almost totally focused on issues relevant to reader's lives. I recommend it highly."

therecord.com

"While Accusation by Catherine Bush is a complex read, it is a great book exploring the nature of the human condition in the fast-paced era of ours. It is a book that needs to be read, thought over, and read again to completely understand the nature of our ways."

inkwellbook.blogspot.ca

"Catherine Bush is a novelist who gets deep into your head.... Through her novels... Bush has acquired a reputation as a writer's writer. With her new novel Accusation, one hopes she'll get the acclaim she deserves."

<i>Cord Community</i>