Overview

A new translation of Simenon's haunting masterpiece of a man on the run from guilt, desperation and mundanity 'If he had searched his conscience, in all seriousness, for anything predisposing him to an eventful future, he would probably not have thought of a certain furtive, almost shameful emotion that disturbed him whenever he saw a train go by, a night train especially, its blinds drawn down on the mystery of its passengers.' Something snaps in the mind of Kees Popinga when the Dutch shipping firm he works for collapses under dubious circumstances just before Christmas, taking all his money with it. From the shell of this model citizen emerges a calculating paranoiac, capable of random acts of violence - even murder. The fugitive Popinga makes his way to Paris, playing a bizarre game of cat and mouse with the police - determined to force an uncaring world to take notice of him.

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9780241258552

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Compelling . . . Simenon shows how close the deranged mind is to the ordinary mind' * Financial Times * One of the greatest writers of the twentieth century . . . Simenon was unequaled at making us look inside, though the ability was masked by his brilliance at absorbing us obsessively in his stories * Guardian * Fierce, bleak and compellingly written . . . with pitiless landscapes of hopeless longing, random cruelty and galloping fate warmed only by the twilit lyricism of doomed desire. These are novels of eye-opening, spine-tingling control and intensity. -- Boyd Tonkin * The Independent *

Fierce, bleak and compellingly written ... with pitiless landscapes of hopeless longing, random cruelty and galloping fate warmed only by the twilit lyricism of doomed desire. These are novels of eye-opening, spine-tingling control and intensity. -- Boyd Tonkin The Independent One of the greatest writers of the twentieth century ... Simenon was unequaled at making us look inside, though the ability was masked by his brilliance at absorbing us obsessively in his stories Guardian Compelling ... Simenon shows how close the deranged mind is to the ordinary mind' Financial Times

Author Information

Georges Simenon was born in Li ge, Belgium in 1903. An intrepid traveller with a profound interest in people, Simenon strove on and off the page to understand, rather than to judge, the human condition in all its shades. His novels include the Inspector Maigret series and a richly varied body of wider work united by its evocative power, its economy of means, and its penetrating psychological insight. He is among the most widely read writers in the global canon. He died in 1989 in Lausanne, Switzerland, where he had lived for the latter part of his life.

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