On August 31, 1997, in the Pont de l'Alma tunnel in Paris, a speeding Mercedes crashed into a pillar, killing two of the four passengers instantly and seriously injuring the other two, one of whom died four hours later; the last spent time in a coma. These are the facts of the night that Princess Diana and her boyfriend, Dodi Fayed, died.
In Laurence Cossé's (The Corner of the Veil) fictional version of the story, there is also a small Fiat Uno traveling into the tunnel at 30 miles per hour. The Mercedes driver, trying to avoid the paparazzi, scrapes the side of the Fiat and loses control of his car in the process. The Fiat driver, 25-year-old waitress Louise Origan, keeps going. Was she responsible for the accident? She has her car repaired by an Indian mechanic who seems wholly indifferent to the transaction, which calms her a little.
For days immediately following the accident, Louise is terrified of discovery, not sure if she caused the accident, but certain that she could easily be made a scapegoat for the tragedy. Pieces of her car's broken taillight are identified, and news sources share that the police will seek out every Fiat in the country.
Louise is already spiraling downward when she learns this news; indifferent to her boyfriend, missing work, not sleeping, reading and watching everything pertaining to the accident. Then the man who repaired the Fiat shows up , and what has been a tense recital of a woman suffering inner torment becomes a study in psychology and survival. Cossé maintains perfect control of her terrifying story, through to the ambiguous ending. --Valerie Ryan, Cannon Beach Book Company, Ore.