France, April 25 -- Unfolding amidst the glamour of 1960s Paris and Delon's starring role in it, the Markovic Affair exposed the city's underbelly. But with bank robbers splashed across the front pages alongside film stars, and the biggest star of all, Delon, mixing with gangsters, were these two worlds as disparate as they appeared?

For Delon, life imitated art. He was filming La Piscine when police came to question him about the death of Markovic, who had once been his stand-in on film sets - a film in which his character was simultaneously being questioned by police over the suspicious death of the man he had replaced, his lover's former flame.

Chisholm, author of the cult hit A Waiter in Paris, wro...