La nuit du carrefour vs Le pendu de Saint-Pholien: Which Should You Read?
Both live on shelves: Kriminalfall, Jules Maigret, Maigret, Paris, French fiction, France
La nuit du carrefour
A classic among Simenons, this is the story of Maigret's night vigil at the Three Widows' Crossroads, where the body of a Jewish diamond-merchant had been found. Pompous M. Michonnet, at one house, owned the car…
vs
Le pendu de Saint-Pholien
First published as Le Pendu de St Pholien, this early Simenon records how Maigret unwittingly drove a little man to suicide. You'd have said that Louis Jeunet was a down-at-heel layabout, but he was packeting up over…
The verdict
- Ratings are close across the board — any is a safe pick by score.
- Le pendu de Saint-Pholien has the widest readership — 4366 ratings behind its score.
- La nuit du carrefour runs the darker storyline; Le pendu de Saint-Pholien stays the lighter read.
How to choose
Scores by source
| La nuit du carrefour | Le pendu de Saint-Pholien | |
|---|---|---|
| Goodreads | 3.7 (3408) | 3.8 (4366) |
| Hardcover | — | 3.5 (6) |
Reception
| La nuit du carrefour | Le pendu de Saint-Pholien | |
|---|---|---|
| Ratings | 3408 | 4366 |
| Editions | 28 | 27 |
| Film adaptations | 1 | 1 |
| Want to read | 1227 | — |
| Reading it now | 259 | — |
| Written reviews | 364 | — |
| Wikipedia attention | 6 | — |
| Pages | 168 | 161 |