Light fiction writer Robert David has completed a novel. He is pleased with his first ambitious work - until one day the main character steps out of the book into his life and brings it into chaos.

Robert David, a successful mystery novelist, has finished his first "serious" novel, about a writer who meets a woman he wrote about. After showing his draft to a few friends, he meets a woman, Sarah, who claims to be the woman he wrote about. As she becomes more independent, he falls in love with her, with real life conforming to his fiction. One problem: at the end of his novel, the writer is killed.—James Meek <[email protected]>