A recently divorced actor and a no less lonely woman meet by chance in a New York diner. The city - its bars, its cheap motels and its rented rooms - becomes the cinematic setting of the couple's escalating and mysterious relationship. A move against desperation and drift, their affair nevertheless glows with an urgent and compulsive romance. Georges Simenon was one of the most popular twentieth-century novelists. Three Bedrooms in Manhattan - closely based on the story of his own meeting with his second wife - is his most passionate and revealing work.