Georges Simenon

Elie Nagéar is a young cosmopolitan who grew up and lived for a long time across many countries, particularly in Turkey. On his journey to Europe, he meets Sylvie, with whom he has a relationship. The young woman works in a nightclub, and in no time the two squander what little money they possess. Seized by desperation during a train journey from Brussels to Paris, Elie robs and kills a wealthy

This is likely not one of Simenon’s finest novels. The plot is exceedingly simple: the niece, who served as a maid, kills her sick aunt when the latter refuses to give her money for her brother. Rummaging through the drawers, she discovers old papers proving that the aunt, together with her lover, had murdered her husband fifteen years earlier. The aunt’s former lover, who remains her business

Maigret returns to the village where he grew up, as an elderly countess has died and he suspects she was murdered. All the figures of a potentially sordid affair are present: the countess’s young lover, the playboy son living the high life, a young parish priest who perhaps knows more than he lets on, and so forth. What emerges is a portrait of a provincial milieu, sketched, in truth, in a super