Barry Forshaw – Simenon: The Man, The Books, The Films: A 21st Century Guide

Barry Forshaw – Oldcastle Books – £12.99

Click here to buy the book

Is there any man or woman in England who knows more about crime writing than Barry Forshaw? Here at The Books Podcast he is our go-to man. He is also delightful company.

Simenon’s Maigret books are the most successful non-anglophone crime series in the world. Easily up there with Sherlock Holmes and Philip Marlowe, but with an entirely different approach to detection. Maigret is closer to psychologist or priest than sleuth.

But Simenon regarded his romans dur – hard novels – as his real writing, and Andre Gide said he was the greatest French novelist of his time.

Having fairly recently come to Simenon, Tim fell upon Barry’s handy book like a starving man upon food, and visited him to explore the character of the man and the special genius (and prodigious productivity) of his writing.

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About Johnny Mindlin

Johnny Mindlin, the producer, spent 10 years in high-end speech radio, producing book programmes, entertainment / review shows and politics/discussion shows. Tim Haigh is a radio presenter and broadcaster and books reviewer. He also writes for national papers on books and literature.
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