It is four o'clock in the morning and out of the rain-slick cobbled streets of Montmartre appears a garishly dressed young woman. Her lipstick is smudged and her gait is unsteady, but there is no mistaking her extraordinary allure. At the police station in the rue de la Rochefoucauld she insists tha...
Simenon has crafted a thoughtful, interesting short novel about a former French Premier, who, in his prime, had been a master political operator and adroit manipulator of people. Now, in his early 80s, retired from politics, quasi infirm, and living on a small estate in Normandy with a small staff ...
My first Maigret and the first Maigret.
It was interesting to see many of the existentialist themes with which Simenon grapples in his other work here in a procedural format. While the noir genre does deal with anxieties about identity and gender, in Simenon’s hands noir is a cultural critique of a...
Atmospheric, dark, stormtossed, and very French, Simenon manages to create a vivid hero in this first book of a SEVENTY-FIVE book series. I enjoyed this short and easy mystery, enough to probably pick up the second at some point. I might even finish all of them by the time I'm 75.
Translated by Baphne Woodville with Maurice Denham in the lead rôle.A conversation overheard leads to death.
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