Warnings of human traffickers abound on Facebook. One post might say that a man was sitting alone in his car by a particular mall, and was perhaps scouting for victims. Be careful in this park, another will read. Someone was handing out flyers, probably an excuse to get within grabbing distance. Innocuous actions become signs of a human trafficking plot.

French writer Yves Ravey’s A Friend of the Family, his first novel to be translated into English, creates a similarly paranoid world. In the novel, however, the potential danger comes from an actual friend of the family instead of a stranger.

Madame Rebernak has almost finished raising her teenagers, one boy and one girl, when her deceased husband’s cousin, Freddy, is released from jail and appears on her doorstep politely but firmly demanding a room. Immediately suspicious, Madame Rebernak turns Freddy away, only to start hearing noises outside her house the following night.

The gendarmes, at first courteous, finish by scoffing and mocking Madame Rebernak. Meanwhile Freddy waits, gazing at her through windows, an uncertain figure on the edge of the frame. Madame Rebernak worries for her children, especially her beautiful daughter Clémence.

Madame Rebernak is right to be afraid for Clémence, but she is suspicious of the wrong person. The phrase “a friend of the family” refers not to Freddy, but to another character entirely, and we know, long before Madame Rebernak does, that she is overlooking the real danger.

Nevertheless, Madame Rebernak is so sympathetic that Freddy’s villainy continues to seem plausible. A classic horror movie heroine, Madame Rebernak knows that something is wrong, but everyone ignores her. The gendarmes suggest Madame Rebernak is being unfair. Why won’t she help a struggling family member? They ask, condescendingly, “if it would be possible to discuss things calmly.” They remind her that “the Ministry of Justice doesn’t let inmates out by accident.” When all Madame Rebernak has done is refuse to allow Freddy to stay in her house they say, “Madame Rebernak, you’re taking this a bit far.” Madame Rebernak is so sure, and everyone else is so uncritically dismissive that it is hard not to think she is right.

A second suspect comes to the fore. But when Madame Rebernak knocks on his door to confront him, she finds herself “embarrassed” to “disturb him at his house.” Her hesitance marks a change. When Freddy had knocked on Madame Rebernak’s door, she had not been embarrassed to turn him away, nor had she tried to hide her contempt. When he asked for directions to the gravestone where his cousin, Madame Rebernak’s husband, was buried, she replied, with tart confidence, it doesn’t “take a wizard to find a tombstone with a name on it.”

Madame Rebernak’s paranoia becomes extreme. She searches for double meanings in every conversation. (What did Monsieur Montussaint mean by this? What did Clémence mean by that?) She is frantic with worry whenever her daughter is out of her sight. She even follows Clémence while she is out with her friends. She tromps through fields until she emerges from bushes by a riverbank where Clémence’s friends are partying. This odd behavior leaves everyone unsettled and annoyed. Yet although her paranoia is bizarre and dangerous, the reader never stops sympathizing with Madame Rebernak. We begin to wonder: How can we tell what’s safe from what’s dangerous? How can we live reasonably when such a determination is not possible?

The gendarmes are right on one count. Madame Rebernak is unfair to Freddy. Like those who stoke fears of human traffickers on Facebook, Madame Rebernak uses Freddy to pin a crime that pervades society on an isolated villain, someone who is not not an uncle, a coach, a classmate—or, indeed, a friend of the family.

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Yves Ravey is a French novelist and playwright. His novels include Bureau des Illettrés, Alerte, and Le Drap, for which he won the Prix Marcel-Aymé in 2004.

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Emma Ramadan is a literary translator of poetry and prose from France, the Middle East, and North Africa. Her award-winning translations include Anne Garréta’s Sphinx and Not One Day, Virginie Despentes’s Pretty Things, Ahmed Bouanani’s The Shutters, and Javad Djavahery’s My Part of Her. She is based in Providence, Rhode Island, where she co-owns Riffraff bookstore and bar.

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Tom Roberge is co-owner of Riffraff bookstore and bar in Providence, Rhode Island. He learned French as a Peace Corps volunteer in Madagascar and was formerly the Deputy Director of Albertine Books, a French language bookstore in New York.

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Emily Sandercock lives in northeastern Pennsylvania. Her writing has previously appeared in BRIZO magazine and Public Seminar.