The little Dutch port of Groningen knew Kees Popinga as a respectable married householder, the father of two children, and managing clerk of the most reputed house of ship's chandlers. As, for years, he had been. Then the firm collapsed. From the shell of this model citizen emerges a cool, conscienceless paranoiac, a killer bent on forcing a hostilemworld to admire his genius. When the scene shifts to Paris it is with all fidelity of a film camera that Simenon gives us the vity in the grip of Christmas, as Kees plays out his ludicrous-murderous game of chess with police and press.


