He was a quiet man. That’s what they always say about the guy who one day picks up an axe and wipes out the whole family. Kees Popinga, the central character of Georges Simenon’s The Man Who Watched Trains Go By, is just such a fellow. He’s got everything dialed nice and tight. He’s obsessed with having constructed a first rate life: a wife, a daughter, a stove, and a house all of the “highest quality.” And then in the course of one evening, as Popinga discovers that the company that helped provide this postcard-perfect life is now bankrupt, it all goes to pot. Kees Popinga snaps, kisses his whole life goodbye in one bold stroke, and embarks on a violent spree that leads him across three countries and makes him the killer du jour of the European press.

Thus, Simenon rendered one of his best roman durs, or hard novels, so named because they involve uncomfortable situations. The pacing of the novel is impeccable; Simenon allows the reader no breathing room. Perhaps it was due to the fact that The Man Who Watched Trains Go By was Simenon’s eleventh novel published in 1938. That’s right, eleventh. Simenon’s reputation for cranking out the prose is almost unparalleled. His record was 40 novels published in 1929 (all written under various pseudonyms according to Luc Sante’s introduction). Once Popinga has made up his mind to leave his old life, we are dragged by the shirt collars along with this once simple man, as he drifts further and further into madness. The bodies start to pile up and in no time, Popinga has changed from an accidental madman to a cold-calculating psychopath.

Popinga’s psyche is at the heart of The Man Who Watched Trains Go By. While not told in first person, we are stuck in Popinga’s brain throughout the novel. We see the reaction of Popinga’s wife, as he suddenly starts to behave in un-husbandly ways, or the mocking laughter of the prostitute, Pamela, that drives Kees over the edge. As Popinga gets to the point of no return, choosing to engage in a game of cat and mouse with the French police, we are there in his skull, seeing Popinga’s deranged motives and actions laid out before us. We see how we reacts to lies printed about him in the press (an especially sore sticking point that causes him to start addressing the French papers directly). We feel his mistrust of the underworld characters who cross his path (and him). We feel his rage at the lack of respect he feels from the police, especially Commissioner Lucas. All the while, we are feeling what Popinga feels, a credit to Simenon’s ability to give the madman all-too-familiar psychological shortcomings.

It is with wonderful irony that Popinga’s rampage, deemed a product of madness by the press, becomes a game of chess between him, the authorities, and the underworld. An avid chess player, with a noted streak for being a sore loser, Popinga considers himself a superb tactician. We see him calculate scenarios, possible reactions, and end-game maneuvers, all the while convinced of his assured victory. And in the end, you become addicted to Popinga’s madness, caught up in his scheme, greatly anticipating every turn of the page.

Chalk it up to a highly skilled writer who knew his craft, and more importantly, his characters. As Sante, details in his introduction, Simenon had a somewhat unorthodox approach to concocting his stories:

“On a large yellow envelope he would, over the course of a week or two, write the names of his characters and whatever else he knew about their lives and backgrounds: their ages, where they had gone to school, their parents’ professions. The envelope might additionally contain street maps of the novel’s setting, although it would never say a word about the book’s eventual plot. Once he was satisfied with these notes, he would enter the hermitage of his study and knock off the book at the rate of a chapter every morning.”

One can see how Simenon’s writing routine infuses Popinga with so much life. We know this man. Most of us have worked with him at one time or another. The fellow who is perfectly content and sedentary in his quiet suburban existence. Simenon, having laid out his pedigree prior to the novel, wastes no time stripping him of the illusion of his worth as an adult and father, turning him into a cold-calculating human animal that bears no resemblance to the content, puffed-up Popinga we are introduced to at the beginning of the novel.

Over the course of this short and punchy tale, Simenon leaves us with a very dark and disturbing exploration of a former sheep who attempts to change his entire existence, remaking himself as a the wolf. In the end, Popinga never turns out to be as smart or as ingenious as he hopes. He wants to love women, but can only kill them. He wants recognition as a criminal mastermind, but is only considered a psychotic madman. The punchline that Simenon delivers so superbly is that no matter how much Popinga’s megalomania convinces him that he is up to the task, he’s not the man he wishes to be.