A rather beautiful short novel translated from the German. Roth is new to me but I loved this story of a soldiers homecoming from captivity to stay in the old Savoy Hotel, along with a crowd of unusual characters. The uncertainty, and threatened violence of a post war city is reflected in his beautiful prose. A nice discovery.

They keep coming, and they keep pleasing. These delightful inspector Maigret books issued by Penguin Classics in new translations are essential for your travels. This one about a woman who keeps coming to see Maigret and he is bored by her constant visits, with bad results...

One of those French novels where very little happens at great length, but we are spared no detail. Actually three short novellas. I managed about one and a half! Picked up at Daunts on a whim.

Though now retired Maigret is drawn back into the familiar world of the Police Judicaire by the folly of his nephew who is accused of a murder. Hovering like a famous ghost at the edge of the investigation, treated with respect and occasionally not, he builds his patient case.

This is not a book you enjoy. And indeed the emotions and passions and violent language of the public towards principals in this tale of two rapes make you despair of the brave new internet world, where ignorance and savagery and hurtful language is the new fee speech. As a Brit all I can say is that this outbreak of extraordinary entitled and violent behaviour towards women has several elements that are peculiarly American. First are the drinking laws which ensure that illegal drinking is the norm, and binge drinking, and private drinking games consume a large amount of College social life. Second is the extraordinary savagery of a game which makes heroes of violent young men. Third is that fame itself and the special privileges that come with it in a closed society, due to the extremely profitable exploitation of their sport, permit young men, of less than high intelligence, and far less than impeccable or sensitive behaviour, to act as if they are above the law. This is now such a common perception that it is epidemic. The liberation of young women into a supposedly equal college society where gangs of boys conspire to seduce them actually leaves them vulnerable. If there is any encouraging news it is that colleges now seem to be taking this rape epidemic seriously, and Obama called it out. It makes you feel ashamed to be a man.

A nicely written sad tale of the worst day of a no longer young and foolish man, who keeps failing and faces an unsympathetic father and separated wife. Good yarn.

Interesting to read the novel after seeing the movie, because of course you know the big secret, which it takes more than half the book to get to. The big secret of Amy. So reading it is interesting because you know she is lying in her version of events, which you would not normally know when reading the book for the first time. As in the movie we feel ambivalent towards them. We don't know what will happen. The brilliance of the book is in this... it is so skilfully plotted. It's filled with a million insights of how it is to be caught up in celebrity culture. Everyone now behaves like the TV and needs to grab the story and twist it for their advantage...