The Hand — Georges Simenon

Brooding and propulsive, Georges Simenon's indictment of American suburbia follows a Connecticut lawyer who, after years of jealousy and rage, finally tears down the facade of his perfect life.

Donald Dodd has always envied Ray Sanders. A Madison Avenue adman with an actress wife and a gift for womanizing, Ray grabs anything he wants from life. Donald, his best friend from Yale, has chosen a safer, more circumspect path. Respected in his job as a small-town lawyer, he's faithfully married to the serene Isabel, a Mayflower descendant, while their two daughters attend a prestigious Connecticut boarding school. It's an irreproachable existence indeed. But everything changes one winter night at a party, when Donald catches Ray with the host's beautiful young wife. Suddenly, Donald's years of jealousy boil over into rage. But is he actually capable of murder? Under Georges Simenon's unsparing gaze, the psychological fault lines of 1960s American suburbia are exposed as never before.