Simenon’s reports from the police and the genesis of Commissioner Maigret

For the romance scams – courtships that lead to the request for money, more or less veiled, for old debts, sick mothers, other urgent needs – there was no need for the internet or Tinder. The wedding announcements in the newspapers were enough, “marriage purpose, refrain from time wasters”. They also appeared in the New York Review of Books and the Village Voice, to alleviate the loneliness of those who “had read all the books.” Georges Simenon writes about the serial killer Henri Landru (guillotined in 1922). He pretended to be a rich widower to deceive “mature and depressed ladies who, in the advertisements, blush and express their desire to find a soul mate”. It is the chapter “The petty bourgeois of crime”, in the collection of reports released by Adelphi with the title “Behind the scenes of the police”.