The Little Man from Archangel - post I

With the memories of the enjoyable experience reading the thriller Roseanna it seemed like a good idea, in a real rush to get to work early for a meeting, to grab something also about the police and suspicion.

A while back one of the purchases made in the top of the Blackheath Oxfam branch was a Georges Simeon book. Bearing in mind he is famous for the Inspector Maigret series it seemed like a good choice to keep me occupied for the rest of this week.

Bullet points between pages 1 – 58

* The book starts with a second hand bookseller lying about the movements of his wife who has gone off and as it unravels seems to have left him to run off with another man – something she has done plenty of times in their brief marriage

* Jonas Milk lives a life of habit in the market square surrounded by other traders including the grocer and his wife and son, who are the family of Gina, his wife who seems to have been sleeping with men since she was 15

* Everywhere Jonas goes he is asked where Gina is and he continues to tell everyone that she has gone to Bourges but the lie starts to get him into trouble with her family and friends and when he discovers she has stolen his expensive stamp collection it looks like she is not coming back

* He realises that very soon his lies will come undone but even before that he is starting to be treated suspiciously by Gina’s family, not all of whom like the man who is 16 years older than the young woman

More tomorrow…