"Many readers will know him as the creator of Commissioner Jules Maigret of the Paris Police Judiciaire, the most unpretentious, humane and convincing of the great fictional detectives. However, his finest work is to be found in what he called his romans durs, or hard novels, including such masterpieces as Dirty Snow, Monsieur Monde Vanishes and the jauntily horrifying The Man Who Watched the Trains Go By."
"The plot focuses on a Parisian couple, the retired builder Emile Bouin and his wife, Marguerite. Both were widowed, and remarried in their 60s. Theirs is not a match made in heaven. Indeed, they inhabit a domestic hell in a claustrophobic Parisian cul-de-sac, where they spend their days devising means of taunting and tormenting each other in a battle of wills that can only end in tragedy."
"They are no longer on speaking terms, and only communicate, if that is the word, by exchanging the briefest of notes. The cat of the title was a stray that Emile rescued from a building site. The creature afforded him a little warmth and companionship in the melancholy of his days, until Marguerite poisoned it, or so he is convinced. In response, he mutilated Marguerite's pet parrot so badly that it died."
A series of hard novels, or romans durs, includes The Cat, a compact, unsettling psychological narrative. The story centers on a Parisian couple, retired builder Emile Bouin and his wife Marguerite, both widowed and remarried in their sixties. Their marriage becomes a claustrophobic domestic hell in a cul-de-sac, defined by petty cruelties and deliberate torment. Communication collapses into terse notes and retaliatory violence. A rescued stray cat is poisoned, and Emile mutilates Marguerite's parrot in revenge. The household is dominated by vindictiveness, grotesque symbolism, and an escalating battle of wills that can only end tragically.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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