Dr. Hans Kuperus of Sneek, a small town in Friesland has killed his wife and her lover, Herr Schutter, Kuperus escapes suspicion and the townspeople sympathize with the widower for a time. Then he begins behaving extravagantly, flaunting his affair with his housekeeper and scandalizing the crabbed, insular community in other ways. Finally, the doctor has no practice, no friends; he and the housekeeper are prisoners in his house.
This is a classic psychological novel, issued in France in 1937 but like all other works of merit, timeless. The author's stringent control of his material faithfully translated by Sainsbury, the narrative hauntingly describes the disintegration of human beings, damned by weaknesses that Simenon compels the reader to recognize and pity.
Partly from Publishers Weekly