The Snow Was Dirty

Georges Simenon · 1903–1989 · Belgium

Originally La Neige était sale (French)

Why it matters

A young man in an occupied city drifts into petty crime and murder with chilling indifference. Simenon's bleakest 'roman dur' strips the crime novel down to pure moral desolation, with no detective in sight.

At a glance

Flat affectless prose masking a genuinely bleak moral interior.