I have a new post up at Criminal Element looking at Simenon's 47th (jesus) Maigret adventure, MAIGRET AND THE HEADLESS CORPSE. This is part of a rereading series I'm doing for CE, looking at my six favorite Maigret books. This one might well be my favorite, if only because it's the one that made me a fan.
I've been on a big Simenon kick for the last couple of years. It started out with his noirs like THE WIDOWER, DIRTY SNOW, and ACT OF PASSION, but it eventually led me back to his Maigret novels. The result of all this reading is a new series over at Criminal Element where I'm going to be rereading the best Maigret novels. You can check out the first installment of the series, Georges Simenon and the Top 6 Maigret Novels here.
I'm really proud to be associated with the Film Noir Foundation and its journal NOIR CITY. Published and edited by FNF honcho and host of TCM's NOIR ALLEY Eddie Muller, it's one of the best movie journals around. The new issue is out and it's pretty damn great. There two pieces by Imogen Sara Smith, who's certainly my favorite writer on film working today. She's got a piece on Jean-Pierre Melville and another on the 1929 silent noir A STRONG MAN. Alan K. Rode writes about the great, if not widely known, screenwriter Frank Fenton. And there's a lot more.
Oh yeah, there's me. I have a couple pieces in this issue. One is a epic overview of the massive influence of Georges Simenon on European film noir. Adaptations of his novels started with Jean Renoir in the early days of sound and have extended to the present, so there's A LOT of territory to cover. It was a blast to write.
The other piece is a look at the film version of ALL THE KING'S MEN, the film about a blowhard populist politician who sweeps to power by inflaming his white rural base. Total fantasy stuff.
You can learn about about the magazine and the Film Noir Foundation here.
The website Book Scrolling has placed my novel HELL ON CHURCH STREET on its list of the Best Noir Novels of all time. While I'm dubious of lists of the all time greatest anything, I am absolutely gratified to be be included on any list that includes the likes of Cain, Hughes, Simenon, and Thompson. So a big thanks to the folks at Book Scrolling.
It's a funny thing to have HOCS included on this list when the book is currently out of print. As some people may know, the last publisher of HOCS, 280 Steps, went out of business not long ago. I could have immediately placed the book elsewhere, but I want to shop it around. I'm slow about these things, and I'm going to finish the current novel I'm working on so I can sell them as a pair, making the process even slower. I'm satisfied in my own mind that this is the smart way to go about the process of placing HOCS in its next home.
So I said all of that to say that I'm especially grateful to Book Scrolling for reminding people of my little book. HELL ON CHURCH STREET changed my life. It gave me a career in writing, it took me to France, and it has introduced me to many wonderful people. So I want to right by it. I'm glad it's still out there in the world making a little noise.
I've been commissioned to write a piece on the film adaptations of one of my favorite authors, Georges Simenon. This is exciting because it gives me a reason to go back to one of noir's deepest wells. The romans durs of Simenon are some of the richest works of the 20th century--tight, muscular stories that move rapidly and yet often tell stories of loneliness and sadness, isolation and despair.
The impetus for this piece on Simenon's film adaptions is the recent re-release of Julian Duvivier's PANIQUE, the 1946 movie version of Simenon's 1933 THE ENGAGEMENT OF MISTER HIRE.
While I've got Simenon on the brain, I thought I would link to a fun photo essay over on Crime Fiction Lover. "Maigret's Paris" is a look at the locations that inspired Simenon's most famous creation, the police commissioner Jules Maigret. Simenon's Paris is one of crime fiction's richest locations, like Chandler's Los Angeles or Doyle's London. Check out the photo essay, and see if it doesn't make you want to curl up with one of the good detective's adventures.
Maigret is a quiet creation, not as flashy as Marlowe or Holmes, perhaps, but no less endearing. For me, though, the real Simenon is found in the "psychological novels" like THE ENGAGEMENT OF MISTER HIRE, a book about a lonely scam artist who becomes the focus of a murder investigation. It's a tragedy, as so many of Simenon's books are, but it's also got humor (even farce) and moves like a locomotive.
That's all for now. I'm off to dive back in.
