The Disappearance of Odile

Odile is eighteen. She leaves Paris with a letter to her brother saying she intends to kill herself. What follows is less a detective novel than a study in the peculiar geometry of a family — the brother who goes looking for her, the world she moved through, the weight of what she was escaping. Simenon published it in French in 1971 as La Disparition d'Odile, and the story carries an extra layer of biographical darkness: five years later, his own daughter Marie-Jo would attempt suicide, and two years after that, succeed.

This is the first American edition, translated by Lyn Moir and published by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich in 1972. The acid-green dust jacket with its envelope graphic is one of the better examples of early 70s HBJ design — worn here but present and recognizable. A solid copy of a less-known Simenon that rewards attention.