The starting point of Steve Hogan's night of horror was the brief radio announcement that a prisoner had escaped from Sing Sing. Outwardly Steve had nothing to grumble about - a beautiful wife, two children, a good job and a house in the middle of Long Island. But there were occasions when he felt himself 'going into the tunnel' - the tunnel of depression and frustration caused by the restricting conventional life that he must follow, like so many others, without ever being able to leave the track.

On this holiday evening - the beginning of the Labour Day weekend - he faced the prospect of a long drive on the overcrowded highways to fetch the children from their camp in Maine. He had had a drink or two - and already wanted another to help him through the 'tunnel' and to bolster himself against his wife's cold hostility. Perhaps it was his grudging admiration for the unknown convict somewhere at large in the darkness, that prompted his gesture of defiance...and as he entered the neon-lit bar, leaving his wife alone in the car outside, Steve finds himself beset by forces beyond his control.

Simenon describes the events of the hours that follow with a quiet but terrifying realism, which compels the reader to share Steve's dread of what the morning may bring.