Mr. Hire's Engagement (Romans Durs)

“I always have a Simenon close at hand. In my youth I adored his Maigret books; nowadays I prefer his ‘hard novels,’ as he called them, in which his mastery of human psychology is laid plain.” —Julian Barnes

Georges Simenon’s chilling portrayal of tragic love, persecution, and betrayal.

One sensed in him neither flesh nor bone, nothing but soft, flaccid matter, so soft and so flaccid that his movements were hard to make out. Very red lips stood out from his orb-like face, as did the thin moustache that he curled with an iron but that looked as if it had been drawn on with India ink; on his cheekbones were the symmetrical pink dots of a doll’s cheeks.

People find Mr. Hire strange, disconcerting. The tenants he shares his building with try to avoid him. He is a Peeping Tom, a visitor of prostitutes, a dealer in unsavory literature. He is also the prime suspect for a brutal murder that he did not commit. Yet Mr. Hire’s innocence will not stand in the way of those looking for a scapegoat as tragedy unfolds in this quietly devastating and deeply unnerving work from Georges Simenon.