Tony is having an affair with Andree. They meet regularly on a Thursday, and if Andree leaves a pink towel visible from the street, all is clear. Her husband is out. They hold their secret assignations in a hotel in the blue room. Just after they've had some very rough passionate
sex, where Andree has bitten Tony and he is dealing with the aftermath at the sink. The sex they have, is becoming increasingly risky and harder to conceal the consequences of. Tony thinks he sees Nicholas, Andree's husband, walking back across the street, and escapes out the back of the hotel. Frightened that their affair has been discovered, Tony decides that it has to end. That he loves his family more, and takes them off on a two week vacation to get away from Andree. Then it becomes apparent that this incident is being recounted in the context of an interrogation by the local magistrate. And that Tony is under arrest, but it's unclear for what. And as the novel progresses it's clear that someone is not telling the truth here. It maybe that Andree has carefully created a false trail of evidence that implicates Tony in a crime. It's either that, or between them Tony and Andree have together carried it out exactly as planned.
The Blue Room, is one of Simenon's later crime novels that have a much more unpleasant darker undertow. They are not your standard crime detective tale, built around Simenon's Maigret character. Here he has chosen to write as Tony in the process of giving evidence in a series if interviews. This way you hear his internal dialogue, know his feelings, his sense of panic.Why is he lying about not seeing the letters, they know he has received? It very cleverly drip feeds you information, whilst still maintaining a silence about what he's actually accused of. And through out you are left unsure. Is he being set up by Andree as revenge for him abandoning her, or is he fully complicit in it? It's a really brilliantly constructed piece of crime writing.
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