Critics call “The Lodger” one of Simenon’s best detective novels without Commissioner Maigret. A film adaptation of the novel starred Philippe Noiret and Simone Signoret. It is hard for the reader to imagine a Georges Simenon novel whose pages do not feature the pipe-puffing, slightly heavyset, and extraordinarily quick-witted police commissioner Maigret. But even without the convincing support of this perceptive hero, the author himself manages to become a brilliant advocate for the criminal. Having made the reader of “The Lodger” a witness to a most brutal murder, the author nevertheless succeeds in winning our unquestionable sympathy for the villain. How he does it is hard to say. Condemning evil, he does not rush to conclusions about who committed it.