Simenon fashions a fascinating tale about the night before Christmas, and the day itself, through the eyes and ears of the Paris police communications centre. Back in 1951 it might have been called "Central" or the "Dispatch Centre," and certainly not computerized like today! Andre Lecoeur operates the big board every night at headquarters. It shows the whole city and all the stations. Usually he's sending police personnel to cover car thefts, rowdy drunks in bars, and accidents. Suddenly call boxes are being broken, but no calls made, from Avenue de Versailles to the Arc de Triomphe. Seven of them. Then a murder comes in. Could this person be a victim of the man who has already killed 8 people in the middle of the night recently? Soon it becomes apparent that Lecoeur's brother, his 10-year old nephew, and his brother's mother-in-law may be involved. During the story, the introspective Lecoeur speculates about something he read, that "at least once in the life of all human beings ... there comes a moment of glory when they are given the opportunity to maximize their potential." Inspector Lecoeur demonstrates that there may be truth in that adage. Who is watching his work? A certain someone who smokes a pipe and works across the street at the Police Judiciaire. Librarian's note #1: this story has more than one name in English: "Seven Small Crosses in a Notebook," and "Seven Little Crosses in a Notebook." Librarian's note #2: this entry is for the story in Librarian's note #1. Entries for collections of short stories by the author can be found elsewhere on Goodreads.
Author
Georges Joseph Christian Simenon (1903 – 1989) was a Belgian writer. A prolific author who published nearly 500 novels and numerous short works, Simenon is best known as the creator of the fictional detective Jules Maigret. Although he never resided in Belgium after 1922, he remained a Belgian citizen throughout his life. Simenon was one of the most prolific writers of the twentieth century, capable of writing 60 to 80 pages per day. His oeuvre includes nearly 200 novels, over 150 novellas, several autobiographical works, numerous articles, and scores of pulp novels written under more than two dozen pseudonyms. Altogether, about 550 million copies of his works have been printed. He is best known, however, for his 75 novels and 28 short stories featuring Commissaire Maigret. The first novel in the series, Pietr-le-Letton, appeared in 1931; the last one, Maigret et M. Charles, was published in 1972. The Maigret novels were translated into all major languages and several of them were turned into films and radio plays. Two television series (1960-63 and 1992-93) have been made in Great Britain. During his "American" period, Simenon reached the height of his creative powers, and several novels of those years were inspired by the context in which they were written (Trois chambres à Manhattan (1946), Maigret à New York (1947), Maigret se fâche (1947)). Simenon also wrote a large number of "psychological novels", such as La neige était sale (1948) or Le fils (1957), as well as several autobiographical works, in particular Je me souviens (1945), Pedigree (1948), Mémoires intimes (1981). In 1966, Simenon was given the MWA's highest honor, the Grand Master Award. In 2005 he was nominated for the title of De Grootste Belg (The Greatest Belgian). In the Flemish version he ended 77th place. In the Walloon version he ended 10th place.
