The Crimes Georges Simenon Declined to Investigate

There have been few writers as prolifically désengagé as Georges Simenon, the author of nearly two hundred absorbing, intensely readable thrillers and detective novels under his own name and many dozens more not-so-readable novels and short stories under a variety of pseudonyms. Unlike the celebrated engagée writers of his generation (Camus, Sartre, and de Beauvoir), Simenon rarely composed a single novel or short story in order to elaborate on his political or philosophical beliefs (even if they often reflected a self-centered, right-leaning complacency). In fact, over decades of producing novels—often at the rate of eight to ten a year—it’s unclear if he even possessed any firm beliefs in anything but his art and his largely remorseless pursuit of physical comforts and pleasures.