ACT OF PASSION

by Georges Simenon ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A

Another psychological probe into the background and motives for murder rather than the earlier investigations of a mystery, this takes the form of a personal record addressed to the Examining Magistrate who had previewed the evidence against Charles Alavoine, accused of killing his mistress, Martine. Alavoine, insistent on proving that his deed was premeditated in full consciousness of the act, goes back to his peasant parents, his drifting into medicine, his first marriage and the blunders that caused the death of his wife in her second childbirth, his marriage to Armande and the demands of her dictatorial perfectionism, and, woman-haunted and fetish-minded, his sudden, possessive hunger for Martine. His determination to root out her soiled and sullied background, his overpowering physical violence, his efforts to develop her natural responses lead him to leave his family and start a new life in Paris and there, with success achieved, comes the knowledge that he must kill her. A psychopathic self-diagnosis, this is a companion dossier to the previous documentaries on questionable sanity, Girl In His Past and The Was Black in explicit terms.

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: 1590173856

Page Count: -

Publisher: Prentice-Hall

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1952

Categories: FICTION