The Stain on the Snow by
Georges Simenon
pbk out September 03
(Orion)
at £6.99
Another brilliant selection for the Crime Masterworks series. Originally
published in 1948 (though some on the Net seem to attribute it to 1938), this is one of
Simenon's romans durs ('hard novels'). And this one is very hard - not to read, but
in its setting. Frank Friedmaier is a thief, a pimp and a murderer. He is also the
central character with whom the reader is asked to identify.
He exists in some unnamed police state controlled by an occupying force. We
don't need to be told it is East Germany, and perhaps it isn't. It is a poverty-stricken,
food-starved urban jungle where people like Frank are created. His mother, Lotte, is a
brothel-keeper who uses amateur whores just trying to survive. Frank's petty thieving
is encouraged by the people he keeps company with at Timo's bar. Principal amongst
these is the extrovert Fred Kromer. It is in this bar that Frank determines to show his
character by stabbing a soldier to death and stealing his gun. In the grey, snow-
stained world he inhabits, it is easy to step from this murder to robbery and murder,
and then to procuring an innocent girl for Fred. Sissy, the girl in question, finds
herself in love with Frank not realising what he is about to do.
Frank, of course, is found out for the robbery, and the second half of the book
examines his mental state as he is questioned by the authorities. It is probably no
accident that he is held in what was once a school. He learns about himself during his
long, lonely incarceration, and contemplates an anonymous woman performing simple
tasks in the flat he can see outside the prison.
Simenon excels at exploring the psychology of this apparently repellent
criminal mind. But the fact is, Frank draws the reader into contemplating their own
lives, their own weaknesses, and their own potential for evil. Frank could so easily
have been a hero, and it is only fate that has cast him as thief, pimp, and murderer.
His final act is to challenge fate, and to meet it head on.
(
Ian Morson
Author of Falconer books and short listed for 1999 Ellis Peters Historical Crime Dagger)
The Stain on the Snow by
Georges Simenon
