Paris

A throughly researched and emminently readable account. Highly recommended.

of these, after the trip, i must say that let's go paris was the most helpful with copious useful maps and tips, in addition to accurate and abundant recommendations on housing, dining and entertainment. frommers was the second most useful in planning and understanding the city.

although i thought that the rough guide would be beneficial, the maps were limited in detail and annotation. also, dining etc was not listed by arrondissements which made searching very difficult.

fodors was nice, but not particularly useful for the moderate income traveler compared to the others. frommers paris i briefly reviewed but found much less useful than this frommers guide.

I did find some weaknesses, which is why I give the novel 4 stars (but then the "degree of difficulty" is high). I don't ever find the romance between Karen and Max to be accessible; Bowen's portrayal is intentionally inscrutable. Though only nine, Leopold seems to think and speak like an adult. In general, I don't agree with Bowen's much praised portrayal of either child.

All in all, a very worthwhile, often intense novel.

It starts by introducing the reader to 11 year old Henrietta who passes through the House in Paris while on her way to visit her Grandmother in Mentone. We are later introduced to Leopold. He is a nine year old boy, going to visit his mother in the House in Paris, whom he has never met. The house belongs to Madame Fisher and her daughter Naomi.

The story then goes backwards, we find out how Leopold came to be. His mother had a tryst with Max while being engaged to someone else. Leopold's Father Max was Naomi's Fiance, whom he would have married had he not killed himself. I will not give the ending away, but the threads of the story come together and everyone has a connection to the house. Bowen's descriptive style of writing is evident throughout the chapters. I can guarantee readers that they won't want to put this book down. You wish the story wouldn't end.

'Yellow Dog' is model Maigret for a number of reasons. It crystallises the Maigret detective method, rejecting Holmesian deduction or modish scientific procedures, the Inspector preferring to silently absorb the atmosphere of a place, the charactetrs and faces of its people. The progress Maigret makes with this infinite patience he keeps to himself, exasperating superiors, colleagues, citizens, even the reader. In these books, crime isn't static, a thing of the past to be frozen and endlessly analysed, as in Agatha Christie et al, but a fluid, ongoing part of the social fabric. The book introduces the young Inspector Leroy, who, throughout the series will become Maigret's most trusted ally. The narrative plays variations on Simenon's favourite themes, most especially the different levels of vice and transgression in French communities, hypocritically categorised by class. His charting the development of public fear into the violence of mob panic is terrifying and prescient.

But 'Yellow Dog' is especially notable for the clarity of what one might term Simenon's tripartite characterisation. First of all, there are the actual human characters, whom Maigret observes, and generously allows the freedom to reveal or hang themselves in their own words, waiting for them to play their petty charades and deceits, before breaking down to the truth. Though Simenon can be sentimental, on the whole, they are not a pretty bunch. Secondly, the meticulous evocation of place, with the vivid description of the harbour; the town divided into the Old, with its ancient, narrow, winding streets, and New, with its markets, gaudy hotels and the ever-recurring clock; the dingy tavern with its oppressive, aquarium-like windows; the persistant presence of dirt and trash, visible emblems of barely concealed social rottenness. And thirdly, the presence of the weather, mostly dark, windswept, beating rain, but breaking into festive plays of light. The story begins with a brilliantly atmospheric, cinematic panorama of the empty town in which the crime is almost incidental; the most forceful set-piece is literally cinematic, as Maigret and Leroy shiver on a roof, spectators looking down through a window-'screen' at a silent lovers' drama they can only partly comprehend.

Almost all elements of the story are resolved at the end; there is the bit about the doppelganger appearance of two of the characters... I hope that Hannah Blank will give us a sequel and resolve this element. I also hope that now that Alphonse Dantan has been introduced, that he will re-appear in her next novel.