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'A brilliant portrait of betrayal, hypocrisy, love and loss' Chicago Tribune
'She tried to laugh, but was sobbing at the same time. She attempted to stand up and fell over, but she didn't shatter like the glass'
Alone and adrift after losing everything in a divorce, Betty finds her life sliding dangerously out of control. When an older woman, Laure, discovers her drunk in a Paris restaurant and nurses her back to health, she is given another chance. But Betty is damaged, consumed by darkness. As the truth about her past, and her nature, emerges, it threatens to consume Laure too.
Originally published in 1961, this gripping psychological thriller caused a sensation and inspired a film adaptation by Claude Chabrol.
'Dark, disturbing ... Simenon discovered something fundamental about the soul' Guardian
About the author
Georges Simenon was born in Liège, 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.Ros Schwartz is an award-winning translator from French. Acclaimed for her new version of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's The Little Prince, published in 2010, she has over 100 fiction and non-fiction titles to her name.
The French government made Ros a Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2009, and in 2017 she was awarded the Institute of Translation and Interpreting's John Sykes Memorial Prize for Excellence.
Summary
'A brilliant portrait of betrayal, hypocrisy, love and loss' Chicago Tribune
'She tried to laugh, but was sobbing at the same time. She attempted to stand up and fell over, but she didn't shatter like the glass'
Alone and adrift after losing everything in a divorce, Betty finds her life sliding dangerously out of control. When an older woman, Laure, discovers her drunk in a Paris restaurant and nurses her back to health, she is given another chance. But Betty is damaged, consumed by darkness. As the truth about her past, and her nature, emerges, it threatens to consume Laure too.
Originally published in 1961, this gripping psychological thriller caused a sensation and inspired a film adaptation by Claude Chabrol.
'Dark, disturbing ... Simenon discovered something fundamental about the soul' Guardian
