Leo Benedictus, a journalist and the author of THE AFTERPARTY, has written a meticulously detailed novel about the protagonist’s life as a stalker. Not content to follow one or two victims, our narrator claims to have followed more than 70. He calls these the “years of my transgressions.” How (or whether) they end is outside the purview of these 200 or so pages, which mainly focus on one particular victim, Frances. A beautiful young woman who holds a responsible job in London, Frances sees her life fall apart with only a suspicion that there may be malevolent forces at work.

"This is a smart, powerful, chilling novel that has antecedents in Hitchcock, Stephen King and even the very precise Nicholson Baker. But it’s not for the faint-hearted."

READ ME begins with the narrator explaining how an inheritance allowed him freedom from a job or other socially acceptable roles. His segue into the role of a full-time stalker seems not so much a decision as an avocation that eventually overwhelms him --- though he benignly claims to “practice people studies.”

The story is written as though by a careful diarist and amateur philosopher who reads Montaigne, not by a psycho who videotapes and records his victims, entering into their lives when he can no longer remain on the sidelines. In the first two-thirds of the novel, the reader may be lulled by curiosity and only a vague sense of foreboding, but these are quickly overtaken in the last third by actions that shock the senses.

After this, it’s hard for the reader --- and apparently the protagonist --- to recover equilibrium. But for the latter, a passing reference to “my other half” helps explain why it may be easier for him to put transgressions behind him. While he recognizes his gradual loss of control, maintaining situational awareness helps him rationalize it. For the reader, the sense of foreboding that has turned into horror and then dread only deepens with the final shocking denouement.

This is a smart, powerful, chilling novel that has antecedents in Hitchcock, Stephen King and even the very precise Nicholson Baker. But it’s not for the faint-hearted.