The Strangers in the House
by Georges Simenon
This is one of the Simenon novels which are considered psychological novels or "romans durs", in other words, his serious work, unlike the Maigret novels. But to me, this just highlights the brilliance of Simenon and of his creation, Maigret; Simenon may not have considered the Maigret novels to be of such value but I can’t agree. This is the first Simenon novel I have read not to feature Maigret but in the first part of the book in particular, Maigret could have walked in at any point and not been in the slightest out of place. This is Simenon’s France: distinctive, certainly a little depressing, but very real and quite addictive!
Simenon’s writing (even in translation) is so distinctive, the atmosphere he created so palpable, and what he reveals about life and the interactions of people so profound that any of his novels can really be considered as psychological, "hard" novels. The Strangers in the House probably does take a little longer than most Maigret novels to explore certain ideas, but although still short, it is nice to have a Simenon work you can really 'get your teeth into'.
It is great to see Penguin continuing to republish new Simenon translations. This one is an absolute winner.
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