News about Georges Simenon

Magic formulas must exist for successful TV shows, but actors and writers have yet to find a foolproof spell. Instead, they keep falling back on the classics, remaking favourite shows in the hopes that lightning will strike twice. Here we examine eight classics and compare them to their remakes - some are better than the original, some are more popular but equally good, and at least one of them is a horrible clunker.

This week, Barry Turner discusses three classic crime books: The Widow Couderc by Georges Simenon; Sepulchre Street by Martin Edwards; and Agatha Christie's At Bertram's Hotel.

RICHARD KAY: Gerard Depardieu was back at work just days after being accused of raping a young actor. In Paris filming a police drama, the multi-millionaire star, one of very few French actors to 'break' Hollywood, was on the banks of the River Seine. Jade Labeste, a bear-like detective, could be seen laughing and joking with attractive co-star Jade Labeste in a scene from Georges Simenon's Maigret, in which the bear-like Depardieu appears as the eponymous pipe-smoking detective. When the film first appeared in theaters last year, it received rave reviews, particularly for its leading man. This despite the fact that Paris investigators had convicted Depardieu depardieu with assaulting Charlotte Arnould, a young woman with health problems more than 40 years his junior, in his mansion in the city in August 2018.