The Crash

The Crash is a 2025 psychological thriller by best-selling author Freida McFadden. The story pits Tegan Werner—young, pregnant, and struggling to keep her life together—against surmounting obstacles and determined enemies as her fight to survive and protect her unborn baby reveals strength and resilience that she never knew she had. Featuring alternating points of view that delve deep into the psyches of both the protagonist and antagonist, The Crash puts character interiority and motivation at the story’s forefront as it probes Perception Versus Reality and the Dangers of Presumption, The Complex Ethics of Rationalization, and The Psychological Influence of Maternal Instinct. McFadden is a prolific writer known for psychological thrillers that feature well-developed characters, complex ethical dilemmas, and insightful examinations of mental health. McFadden’s work as a physician specializing in brain injury lends a high level of authenticity to the medical scenarios in her novels. Other thrillers by McFadden include the Housemaid series (The Housemaid, The Housemaid’s Secret, and The Housemaid Is Watching), The Teacher, The Coworker, and The Perfect Son.

This guide refers to the e-book edition published in 2025 by Poisoned Pen Press.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of death, rape, mental illness, illness, child abuse, suicidal ideation, and substance use.

Plot Summary

The Crash opens with a Prologue in which an unidentified narrator commits murder; the identity of the victim and the reasons for the crime are left unspoken.

After the Prologue, Tegan Werner takes over the narrative. She is 23, is living in a run-down apartment in small-town Maine, and is almost eight months pregnant after a one-night stand with wealthy real estate mogul Simon Lamar. To keep his wife from learning about his indiscretion, Simon is offering Tegan a great deal of money in exchange for a nondisclosure agreement. His lawyer, Jackson Buckner, has been hammering out the details and walking Tegan through them. Just as Tegan is about to sign the contract, a repressed memory surfaces, and she realizes that Simon drugged and raped her on the night she went home with him.

After refusing Simon’s hush money, Tegan accepts an invitation to visit her brother, Dennis. She drives into a blizzard, loses control of her car, and crashes. Injured, trapped in the car, and freezing, Tegan realizes that she won’t survive without help. Luckily, a man named Hank Thompson comes along, but Tegan soon realizes that he’s taking her to his home, not the hospital. There, Hank’s wife, Polly Thompson, explains that the power and phone lines are down and offers to care for Tegan until the roads are cleared. The next day, Polly claims that they still can’t get Tegan to the hospital. Tegan is trapped in the basement and too injured to move. She doesn’t have her cell phone and begins to fear for her safety.

Polly’s backstory reveals that she lost her job as a hospital nurse due to a mental health condition stemming from her inability to have a child. Now, she stays home, occasionally caring for her neighbor’s seven-year-old daughter, Sadie, despite Sadie’s father, Mitch, warning Polly to stay away. Polly knows that Sadie’s father neglects her and suspects that he’s abusive as well.

When Hank brings Tegan home during the blizzard, Polly is envious of her pregnancy and suspects that Tegan won’t be a good mother. She begins formulating a plan to keep Tegan there until she gives birth and then keep the baby for herself. Polly convinces Hank that Tegan wants to stay while simultaneously making excuses to Tegan about why they can’t get her to the hospital. When Hank becomes suspicious, Polly extorts him, threatening that if he doesn’t help her keep Tegan, she’ll inform the police about his role in covering up the tax fraud she committed in the past.

Over the next few days, a police officer and Tegan’s brother, Dennis, come looking for Tegan, knowing only that her car was found nearby. Polly and Hank deny any knowledge of the missing woman. Tegan’s efforts to leave escalate, and Polly tricks her into drinking a concoction meant to induce labor. Hank gets a glimpse of Tegan’s injured leg and tries to take her to the hospital, but Polly stops him by threatening to die by suicide. Later, Hank realizes that Polly plans to kill Tegan after she delivers the baby. Fearing that Tegan will escape, Polly decides to break Tegan’s kneecap on her uninjured leg, but a moment of clarity stops her just in time. She hasn’t changed her mind, however; she’s only postponed the inevitable.

By the fourth day after Tegan’s crash, she’s fevered and hallucinating. She has a severe infection in her injured leg, and Polly knows that if she doesn’t get antibiotics soon, she’ll die. She orders medication by impersonating a doctor. While Polly is picking it up from the pharmacy, Hank carries Tegan out of the basement and takes her to the emergency room. When Polly comes home to find Tegan gone, she accuses Hank of betraying her and ruining their lives. She goes to the hospital in her old nurse’s uniform with plans to stop Tegan from telling anyone what she and Hank did.

In the hospital, Tegan learns that the police found evidence that the brakes in her car had been tampered with. Simon’s lawyer, Jackson, visits and tries to tell Tegan something important, but Dennis makes him leave before he has a chance. When Polly finds Tegan’s room, she sees Dennis trying to inject morphine into Tegan’s IV. She stops him and chases him when he flees. Jackson helps her apprehend Dennis, and they turn him over to security before Polly quietly sneaks away. When Polly returns home, a police officer outside Sadie’s house informs Polly and Hank that Mitch fell when he was drunk and died.

A detective who’s been investigating Simon explains everything to Tegan. Dennis was counting on Simon’s financial backing in a major business deal and knew that Simon would pull out if Tegan went to the police about him raping her. Simon and Dennis plotted her death together. When Tegan turned up in the hospital alive, Dennis tried again, but Polly saved her. Tegan decides not to tell the police about Hank and Polly, claiming temporary amnesia after the accident.

One year later, Tegan is living in her own home with her daughter, Tia. Jackson remains in her life and has become a close friend, soon to be something more than a friend. Polly sought psychiatric care, and now she and Hank are Sadie’s foster parents. Hank reveals that he killed Mitch, seeing it as the only way to protect Sadie. Sadie knows the truth, but she’s happy and will keep Hank’s secret forever.