"A writer as comfortable with reality as with fiction, with passion as with reason." --John Le Carré

In this brilliant new translation of Georges Simenon's classic novel, a young man descends into a brutal world of crime

"And always the dirty snow, the heaps of snow that look rotten, with black patches and embedded garbage . . . unable to cover the filth."

Nineteen-year-old Frank--thug, thief, son of a brothel owner--gets by surprisingly well despite living in a city under military occupation, but a warm house and a full stomach are not enough to make him feel truly alive in such a climate of deceit and betrayal. During a bleak, unending winter, he embarks on a string of violent and sordid crimes that set him on a path from which he can never return. Georges Simenon's matchless novel is a brutal, compelling portrayal of a world without pity; a devastating journey through a psychological no man's land.