Based on a True Story

As the very title suggests, this latest work from Prix Goncourt finalist de Vigan (Underground Time) is metafiction, or memoir as fiction, but it's also a smart, elegant thriller that generates its chills from the very ordinariness of events as they start unfolding. A novelist named Delphine, fragile and anxious after the unexpectedly overwhelming success of a new novel, attends a party and becomes enchanted with a women named L., who flirtatiously tells Delphine that she's beautiful when she dances. L. seems perfectly attuned to Delphine and counterbalances her unease with feminine sophistication. Later, after receiving a particularly angry letter from a reader, Delphine gets a call from L., welcome if puzzling; where did she get Delphine's number? L. explains that away and slides smoothly into Delphine's life, eventually taking over. In the end, Delphine is caught in a web of her own making.