This is one of roman durs, or 'hard novels' as Simenon liked to called them to distinguish them from Maigret's novels. Written in confessional tone, almost like a 140 pages of letter to judge, it tells a story of a troubled man and his affair with some woman who he ultimately killed. Everything he did and not did appear in his letters, like he is confessing all of his sins to unknown judge, and at the end of the novel he kills himself in his cell.
