Book plot - Do you think this would actually happen?

[steppemum]

I have just read a book. There is a major incident aroudn which the wholeof the rest of the book revolves.

To me, the incident is so unlikely, that it spoilt the rest of the book.
But I though, maybe I am too conservative?
So do you think this is likely enough to be true? Or is it just ridiculous?
Plot:

group of young people (17-19) go out to a party. Get in car to go home. Driver is drunk, but much less drunk than the rest of them, the rest of them push him into driving.
On the way home he hits a pedestrian and she is thrown over the car and dies. (so far, believable)
Road is deserted, and the group gather round the woman. One (not the driver) suggests that they should get rid of the body, as she is dead anyway, but if this came out, all their lives would be ruined. Some of them (including driver) protest, but are overruled. So they put body in the boot and drive home.
They go to their favourite pub which is closed, but they have a key. Take the body indoors and sit around trying to decide what to do.

Then the body moves. At this point 2 of them shout hard that they must phone an ambulance/police and save her. Driver is one of those. Again overruled, and instead the leader strangles the woman so she is now dead.
They then lift up the floorboards of the pub basement (used as a restaurant) and bury her under the floor, wrapped in blankets.

Life then returns to normal, and the body is never discoverd.
Time passes.....
-----

Well? Some many things don't add up for me. Including that they would all go along with this, the fatc that they deliberately murder her, the fact they bury her under the floor, and no-one notices. The body doesn't smell, etc etc.

What do you think?

summerblondey what is a double bagger?!

I'm assuming a double bagger is when you have to put it in 2 body bags due to smells and liquids

Something a bit similar in a black mirror, in terms of going along with it and keeping it secret

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crocodile_(Black_Mirror)

It would spoil it for me, too. I’d Chuck it across the room and leave it there.

Sounds like a typical horror/psychological thriller story line. Are you sure it isn't the book I Know What You Did Last Summer? I read the book as a teenager and it's definitely very similar.

@TyneTeas and also The Wych Elm (which I felt was highly "unlikely" too)

I'm assuming a double bagger is when you have to put it in 2 body bags due to smells and liquids

Yes, correct

Ah - just checked and in the book they call an ambulance anonymously then leave.

@wowfudge

Sounds like a typical horror/psychological thriller story line. Are you sure it isn't the book I Know What You Did Last Summer? I read the book as a teenager and it's definitely very similar.

no.

and actually, this is a key moment, but you don't find it out until later, the plot is around a whole other issue!

It is a good book, but when I read this bit, which is a key explanation, I was cross as it felt like it was a cop out to set up the situation they wanted.

Sometimes to enjoy a book you have to suspend your belief in reality. Many crime/thrillers are extremely absurd really. But it's an escape from reality.

I hate lazy writing like this. I was recently reading a book called The Familiars about the Penske Witch Trials. I couldn’t finish it simply because the distances involved were so wrong - at one point a heavily pregnant woman rode 60 miles in one night (30 there, 30 back) and no one noticed her absence. It was infuriating.

@Aroundtheworldin80moves

Sometimes to enjoy a book you have to suspend your belief in reality. Many crime/thrillers are extremely absurd really. But it's an escape from reality.

yes I agree, but I do think something that is based in the real world, should be consistent with how people actually behave, or reality (like the body smell)

@FenEel

There was a similar plotline in a Scandi drama recently - the interesting plot hinged on this similar thing happening which I found hard to believe. Also I seem to remember a similar plot in the worst book I have ever read which is Anything for Her by Jack Jordan. My God, that is a bad book.

SPOILER FOR SPANISH SERIES COMING

It wasn't as bad as a Spanish series I watched though, which was intriguing and interesting (girl disappears, man who is suspected may or may not have amnesia, may or may not have killed her, and if he did may or may not know that he did) - until it turned out he had kidnapped her, then forgotten, and she had been lying in a dungeon somewhere with no food or water and with injuries for weeks and weeks - and was still alive. I just couldn't carry on watching it then it was so stupid.

Wait I remember this - wasn’t it Alicia, his wife, who was feeding Ana and who’d really kidnapped her?

Oh was it? As I say, I gave up, so maybe it became less stupid!

Reminds me a bit of the plot of “how to get away with murder”. That same thing of a group deciding to keep a secret

I think the middle step is the weird bit.

I can imagine people panicking and wanting to conceal a death - and it happens.

I can imagine panicking if they thought they were under attack etc and killing someone half dead.

The middle bit of going to the pub makes less sense, especially with teenagers. Someone would want their mum, someone would change their minds - it's a clumsy plot mechanism to get them to the pub, which doesn't make sense anyway due to the smell factor.

Makes more sense if they panicked, agreed to take the body to one of their homes and admit things (not knowing they could be prosecuted for moving the body), then got surprised by the death woman and accidentally killed her in shock/defence. THEN agree a cover up.

But on the whole I don't like nit picking or plot holes on the grounds of human behaviour not making sense, because have you met human beings? They're bloody idiots, the lot of them.

(like the criticism "this plot could have been solved by people talking to one another" - yeah, and so could half the threads on AIBU!)

But on the whole I don't like nit picking or plot holes on the grounds of human behaviour not making sense, because have you met human beings? They're bloody idiots, the lot of them.