New Releases by Georges Simenon

A train signalman, who literally watches the world through glass, is jolted from passivity in this riveting tragedy of male alienation. From his elevated glass cabin at the ferry terminal, train signalman Louis Maloin can survey the whole of Dieppe. For thirty years of working the night shift, he hasn’t varied his routine. He smokes his pipe, drinks his coffee and brandy, and watches people. Then, one fateful winter’s night, he witnesses a senseless murder. At a stroke, Maloin’s status as an apathetic bystander is upended, and he knows nothing can ever be the same. But will his future be happier or bleaker, and can he tilt the scales either way? A provocative classic of philosophical fiction, The Man from London poses that most troubling of questions: If free will is an illusion, who or what is pulling our strings?

A malicious interloper in a quiet family is the catalyst to tragedy, in this unnervingly prophetic tale of small-town groupthink in 1930s Europe. Twenty-five-year-old Hans Krull, from Germany, is finally visiting the French Krulls: Uncle Cornelius, Aunt Maria, and cousins Anna, Joseph, and Liesbeth. It would be best, they tell Hans, if he concealed his nationality: it’s the 1930s and the family, who owns a grocery, suffers discrimination for their German heritage. Yet nonchalant, charismatic Hans, who takes pleasure in causing discomfort, instead flaunts his Germanness. Then a local girl is raped and murdered, and a terrifying wave of hostility swells against the Krulls. For decades they’ve been living discreetly, hoping to shed their image as sinister foreigners. Now their worst fears are realized. The only answer is for Hans to leave France, to disappear—but will he? With The Krull House, Georges Simenon proves himself not only a fearless explorer of psychological depths, but a social critic with startling prescience.

Maigret must wade through a media frenzy when news of a body found in a stove spreads across Paris. Who is the corpse, and how is the case connected to Madame Maigret? A gruesome mystery has the whole of Paris agog: who is “the corpse in the stove”? The stove’s owner, a reclusive Belgian bookbinder detained in the Santé prison, isn’t saying. His ambitious young lawyer, meanwhile, keeps giving combative press interviews, stoking public fascination to a fever pitch. As Maigret and his team triage a flood of tip-offs, the case throws up a series of unexpected connections—even, bizarrely, to Madame Maigret. Plotted with a watchmaker’s intricacy, Madame Maigret’s Friend is a hypnotic journey through a city where everyone’s lives are enmeshed, whether they realize it or not.

Brooding and propulsive, Georges Simenon’s indictment of American suburbia follows a Connecticut lawyer who, after years of jealousy and rage, finally tears down the facade of his perfect life. Donald Dodd has always envied Ray Sanders. A Madison Avenue adman with an actress wife and a gift for womanizing, Ray grabs anything he wants from life. Donald, his best friend from Yale, has chosen a safer, more circumspect path. Respected in his job as a small-town lawyer, he’s faithfully married to the serene Isabel, a Mayflower descendant, while their two daughters attend a prestigious Connecticut boarding school. It’s an irreproachable existence indeed. But everything changes one winter night at a party, when Donald catches Ray with the host’s beautiful young wife. Suddenly, Donald’s years of jealousy boil over into rage. But is he actually capable of murder? Under Georges Simenon’s unsparing gaze, the psychological fault lines of 1960s American suburbia are exposed as never before.

A private confession leads an ordinary Dutchman to abandon his family for a life on the run in Georges Simenon’s existentialist masterpiece. Kees Popinga has always played by society’s rules. A dutiful husband and father, he owns a house in a nice neighborhood and holds down a responsible job in the shipping industry. Fantasies of escape, of rebellion, are kept carefully contained—until the night Kees’s boss makes a private confession. Having recklessly bankrupted the firm, he plans to fake his own death. Kees is not only shocked; he’s exhilarated. Abandoning his home and family, he is soon a violent fugitive, wanted by police in Amsterdam and Paris. Has he gone insane, or was his compliant former self a masquerade? Infused with Georges Simenon’s gift for moral complexity, The Man Who Watched the Trains Go By is a haunting existentialist masterpiece.

A panicked man turns to Maigret for help—and dies before the detective can learn his identity. Who was he, and what led to his brutal murder? One morning, Maigret receives several phone calls from an increasingly panicked man. He’s being followed, he says, and his pursuers want to kill him. Before Maigret can track down the caller, his lifeless body is thrown from a car. Yet his identity remains a mystery. Who was he, and what led to his brutal murder? As Maigret sorts through the bewildering evidence, he develops a surprising affinity for this anonymous victim, whose personality seems to resemble his own. His legendary intuition heightened, the inspector is poised to crack a case with, it turns out, far greater repercussions than one man’s death. Fiendishly plotted and humming with psychological tension, Maigret’s Dead Man is an unmissable installment in Georges Simenon’s famous detective series.

“A writer who, more than any other crime novelist, combined a high literary reputation with popular appeal.” —P. D. James Caught in a spiral of bitter seclusion and drinking since his wife abandoned him and their newborn child eighteen years ago, Hector Loursat, once a respected lawyer, now holes up, unwashed and drunk on Burgundy, in his once grand but increasingly decrepit mansion. He barely notices the goings-on under his roof or the strange, dangerous secret life his daughter and her friends are leading there. He is shaken from his complacency by a gunshot one night and walks into the scene of a murder. Overcoming the inertia of his long isolation and inexplicably drawn to his daughter’s group of young friends, he finds new engagement with the world as he seeks to clear the name of the young man accused of the killing. Simenon, master chronicler of the dark side of the human heart, gives us a detective story that is also a tale of an improbable redemption.

“Simenon has concentrated noir into a darkness as solid and heavy as the interior of a dwarf star.” —William T. Vollmann What happens to everyday morality in a time of political deceit and betrayal? In an unnamed city under military occupation, nineteen-year-old Frank—a low-level thug and thief—should be content enough with his warm home and full stomach, even against the dreariness of an endless winter. Instead, though, he’s inexorably drawn to commit a string of brutal, senseless acts of violence. Set against the backdrop of a bleak, pitiless world, Georges Simenon’s The Snow Was Dirty is a peerless indictment and examination of the chilling banality of evil.

“Both the Maigret books and his standalone romans durs . . . are a joy. What they have in common is crisp, economical prose, unexpected emotional depth and a strange sense of modernity.” —Andrew Taylor Nearly two years into his police retirement, Maigret has turned down all offers of private detective work—until, during a broiling hot August, the teenage daughter of a wealthy family is found drowned in the Seine. According to her grandmother, the imperious Bernadette Amorelle, it was neither an accident nor a suicide. The former inspector must, she insists, abandon his garden and accompany her to the affluent hamlet of Orsenne. Maigret is ill at ease in the cloistered milieu of manicured lawns, yachts, and swimming pools. Seeing the strained dynamic among the dead girl’s relatives, his disquiet grows. Why is a sixteen-year-old boy, her cousin, kept locked up? And why does Bernadette loathe her son-in-law, a board director of all the family companies, with such passion? In this gothic-tinged Machiavellian tragedy, Maigret is unflinching in his quest for answers—even if they blacken his view of humanity more than he’d thought possible.

“I want to know what goes on in people’s minds. I suppose that’s why I love Georges Simenon so much. He was such a master of the small domestic situation.” —Ruth Rendell Tomorrow, at five in the afternoon, I will kill the clairvoyant. Signed,Picpus. This chilling message is seen scratched into a café blotting pad, prompting Maigret to place eighty fortune tellers under police watch. If it’s a hoax, he frets, he’ll never hear the end of it. Then the call comes in: clairvoyant Mademoiselle Jeanne has been fatally stabbed. While she lies dying, a senile old man is locked in an adjacent room. Maigret feels acute sympathy for this disheveled, bewildered figure—but who is he really? And how did his fate get mixed up with an audacious enterprise of scammers and thieves? The rest of Paris may be lazing under the bright August sun, but Maigret won’t rest until he solves this most labyrinthine of cases. With his deeply felt sense of the tragic, Georges Simenon composes a masterpiece of crime fiction in Signed, Picpus.

A gripping novel that sees Maigret brought out of his peaceful retirement. When Maigret’s police officer nephew is framed for a gangland murder, the former chief inspector must swap his countryside retirement for his old stomping ground: Paris’s seamy underworld. Fueled by regular tipples and his omnipresent pipe, he goes up against a criminal enterprise whose leader, a police informant, considers himself untouchable. Can Maigret’s forensic but off-the-books investigation save his nephew from prison—and uphold his own legacy as a peerless maverick for justice?

Sun, sand, the Côte d’Azur—and a mysterious dead man with multiple hidden lives. Who was Mr. Brown? And why does the mystery of his life preoccupy Maigret so? Georges Simenon’s Maigret arrives in Antibes on the French Riviera tasked with discreetly solving the murder of one Mr. Brown, stabbed in the back as he returned to the house of his mistress and her mother. As Maigret investigates, he finds himself drawn to the seedy dive bar frequented by the late Mr. Brown, and strangely absorbed in his ruminations on the many secret lives of this cipher of a man. Is Maigret simply distracted by the sun, surf, and vacationers, or is there something else about the case that is preoccupying him? And is it keeping him from seeing the truth in this tale of murder on the Côte d’Azur?

An evocative tale from Georges Simenon that unearths the inspector’s past: Maigret finds an anonymous note predicting a crime in his hometown. I wish to inform you that a crime will be committed at the church of Saint-Fiacre during first mass on All Souls’ Day. This handwritten note is deposited at the headquarters of the Police Judiciaire in Paris. Maigret sets off for the village, having been there last for his father’s funeral. As bleary-eyed people depart the All Souls’ service, Maigret thinks the note must be wrong—until the motionless Countess of Saint-Fiacre, upon closer look, is found dead in her pew. Who is responsible for the crime? Could it be the countess’s young secretary and alleged lover, the tight-lipped priest, the profligate Count of Saint-Fiacre, or the new estate manager? Though inundated with troubling memories from his past, Maigret remains steadfast in his hunt for the truth behind this sinister turn of events.

In a dimly lit apartment building, where shadowy figures come and go, a man has been killed in Georges Simenon’s The Shadow Puppet. On the dimly lit Place des Vosges, Maigret hears the sound of a woman in distress. But this is no crime; she is giving birth in a room above. The lights of the apartments across the courtyard flicker, and Maigret sees shadowy figures at the windows. Behind one is a dead man and an empty safe. As one life begins, another has come to a dark end. In this installment of the Maigret series, the Parisian detective uncovers a tragic story of desperate lives, unhappy families, addiction, and a terrible, fatal greed.

An eerie mystery in which a local wine dealer is shot and a strange yellow dog starts to circle the town—Inspector Maigret must navigate small-town dynamics to find the elusive culprit. Late at night in a small seaside town, not a single light is on, and everyone is asleep. Or almost everyone: a man, drunk, departs for home after another evening at a hotel bar, where he and a few others regularly gather. Suddenly, he collapses—struck by a gunshot. The victim turns out to be the town’s most successful wine dealer, and the event soon leads to a series of other curiosities: poisoned drinks at the bar, another man found missing, and a dirty yellow dog haunting the neighborhood, accompanied by large, unfamiliar boot tracks. Detective Chief Inspector Maigret, who happens to be nearby heading up a mobile unit, arrives swiftly to resolve the growing confusion. Though a chill sets over town, with townspeople remaining tight-lipped, Maigret’s pursuit of the truth in Georges Simenon’s The Yellow Dog makes for a thrilling, breathless adventure.

In this first installment in Georges Simenon’s legendary Inspector Maigret series, M. Maigret hunts down an elusive and notorious confidence man, but finds that identifying him is a game of doubles, intrigue, and hidden crimes. When Detective Chief Inspector Maigret receives notice from Interpol that Pietr the Latvian, an infamous con man, is on his way to Paris, he rushes to intercept him at the train station. But when he arrives he is confounded to find two men who fit the description of the wanted man. One is alive, the other dead. So who is Pietr? A businessman or a bootlegger? Is he Latvian, American, or Russian? In order to find out, Maigret must use his keen understanding of human nature, his gift for observation, and his famous instincts to track down the true suspect in Pietr the Latvian, the first mystery in Georges Simenon’s iconic series.

Another riveting tale from Georges Simenon, in which two siblings, living in isolation, are suspects in a tale of deception, theft, and murder. It’s been seventeen hours of interrogation, yet Carl Andersen’s air of elegance remains unruffled. Inspector Maigret is bewildered by the behavior exhibited by the only probable suspect of the case at Three Widows Crossroads, the location of Carl’s isolated mansion where he lives with his sister Else. The Saturday evening prior, Carl and Else go to sleep, after Carl has locked her away in her bedroom as usual—a curious habit, notes Maigret, but stranger things soon arise. Carl’s faraway neighbor Monsieur Michonnet discovers that his flashy new automobile has swapped places with Carl’s run-down vehicle; what’s more, in the front seat of Michonnet’s car sits a dead man, a Belgian diamond merchant no one purports to know, shot point-blank in the chest. Hours later, Carl and Else are caught trying to embark on a train to Paris. It’s bizarre business, but Maigret is determined to shake off the unease and find out what the residents of Three Widows Crossroads are covering up in The Night at the Crossroads, an exciting, unnerving story from the inimitable Georges Simenon.

Suddenly witness to a man’s dreadful death, Inspector Maigret finds himself faced with a series of sordid events that drove the man to despair in this haunting tale of guilt and tragedy. While stopped at a railway station on the northern edge of Holland, Inspector Maigret catches sight of a traveler acting oddly: the man glances around furtively, pulls out handfuls of coins to pay for purchases, and guards a small suitcase. Maigret decides to follow the man, thinking he’ll help catch a crook—but then the inspector witnesses something terrible. The stranger leaves behind only a passport with a false name and an old, large, dirty gray suit. Struck by guilt, Maigret resolves to figure out who this man was and why events ended so tragically. The Hanged Man of Saint-Pholien is a moving and deep exploration into the burdens of conscience and the lengths one might go in pursuit of absolution.

Inspector Maigret believes a man he convicted may not be guilty after all—and so hatches an audacious plan to save him before he is condemned to death. A man escapes out of the High Surveillance wing of the most infamous penitentiary in Paris. Members of the Police Judiciaire see him, but no one moves a muscle. In fact, it’s part of a daring plan concocted by Inspector Maigret, who thinks Joseph Heurtin may not be guilty of the murder of Madame Henderson and her maid—despite Maigret’s having convicted Joseph himself months before. Once on the loose, Joseph is the subject of careful surveillance: will the accused return to his ring of criminal masterminds, or is he indeed as unknowing as he maintained in every interrogation? With his career hanging in the balance, and a search for the escapee ongoing, Maigret must prove Joseph’s innocence before it’s too late, before an execution comes to pass. Georges Simenon’s A Man’s Head is a suspenseful, thrilling tale of a desperate quest for the truth.

“A writer as comfortable with reality as with fiction, with passion as with reason.” —John Le Carré Investigating the murder of one of Paris''s elite, the detective Maigret finds the list of suspects is longer than anyone could have imagined When a wealthy wine merchant is shot and killed in Paris, Inspector Maigret must investigate a long list of family, colleagues and lovers to uncover just who could have committed the crime. Delving into the depths of the man''s personality, Maigret discovers that the victim may have made one too many enemies on his way to the top. Breathlessly paced and psychologically astute, Maigret and the Wine Merchant is a thrilling mystery from the master Georges Simenon.

“A writer as comfortable with reality as with fiction, with passion as with reason.” —John Le Carré When a familiar face from Maigret''s past brings him word of a mysterious killing, the Inspector jumps on the case When a long lost friend pays a visit to Maigret''s office, he is shocked to learn that the man''s roommate has been murdered. With the help of his old friend, Maigret delves into the life of the victim and finds a complex web of relationships that leads him to the culprit. Absorbing and impossible to predict, Maigret''s Childhood Friend is a riveting mystery that reveals a new shade to the iconic detective.

“A writer as comfortable with reality as with fiction, with passion as with reason.” —John Le Carré When his relaxing vacation is interrupted by a small-town murder, Inspector Maigret can''t resist lending his investigative powers to the case Inspector Maigret and his wife take a much needed holiday to Vichy, where they quickly become used to the slower pace of life. But when a woman who they regularly pass by on their daily strolls is murdered, Maigret can''t help but offer his assistance to the local Inspector, a former colleague of his. Set against a backdrop of gorgeous French countryside, Maigret in Vichy shows that even when our trusty detective is outside his jurisdiction, he is still very much in his element.

“A writer as comfortable with reality as with fiction, with passion as with reason.” —John Le Carré When a mysterious letter writer warns Inspector Maigret that a murder is imminent, Maigret must trace the messages back to their source before it is too late When a series of letters, penned on expensive stationery, arrives at Maigret''s desk claiming that a murder will take place but that the writer is unsure as to who will die, who will do the killing, and when the killing will occur, Maigret''s interest is piqued. He quickly traces the stationery back to the house of Emile Parendon, an eminent lawyer. But once there, the inspector finds that pinning down clues to a crime not yet committed isn''t easy. When a murder does take place, the identity of the victim surprises even Maigret. A twisty and engrossing mystery, Maigret Hesitates puts the great detective''s powers to the test.

“A writer as comfortable with reality as with fiction, with passion as with reason.” —John Le Carré During a high-profile hunt for the latest criminal gang to hit Paris, Maigret is determined to track down the murderer of a quiet crook whom he cannot help but respect When the body of Honoré Cuendot, an old burglar acquaintance of Maigret’s, is found in the Bois de Boulogne with his face bashed in, Maigret is appalled that his superiors consider it a mere gangland killing. And there’s a personal element to this case as well: Maigret rather liked Cuendot. Instead of concentrating on the flashy bank robberies occupying the rest of his department, Maigret decides to inquire into Cuendot’s life—and finds himself tied up in the bank robberies, too, along the way. A deliberate, involving murder mystery that only the likes of our trusty Inspector could solve, Maigret and the Lazy Burglar reveals that Maigret’s famous intuition is only one of his skills, and that his incredible empathy is just as important for bringing about justice.

''Compelling, remorseless, brilliant'' John Gray For the first time in his career Inspector Maigret receives written summons to the Prefect''s office where he learns that he has been accused of assaulting a young woman. With his career and reputation on the line, Maigret must fight to prove his innocence. This novel has been published in a previous translation as Maigret on the Defensive. ''His artistry is supreme'' John Banville ''One of the greatest writers of the twentieth century . . . Simenon was unequalled at making us look inside, though the ability was masked by his brilliance at absorbing us obsessively in his stories'' Guardian

''His artistry is supreme'' John Banville ''Why all of a sudden did this shock him? He was annoyed with himself for being shocked. He felt as if he had been sucked into the bourgeois, almost edifying, atmosphere that surrounded those epeople, ''good people'' so everyone kept telling him.'' A retired manufacturer has been shot dead by his own pistol, last seen alive by his son-in-law. In this seemingly motiveless murder, Inspector Maigret must rely on his famous intuition to discover the truth. This novel has been published in a previous translation as Maigret and the Black Sheep. ''One of the greatest writers of the twentieth century '' Guardian

‘Acute psychological insight and a distinctive, spare, atmospheric style ... Simenon ought to be spoken of in the same breath as Camus, Beckett and Kafka’ Independent on Sunday The death of a beloved former ambassador unearths disturbing truths in this classic novel featuring Simenon''s literary legend ‘He had seldom been so perplexed by human beings. Would a psychiatrist, a teacher or a novelist ... have been better placed to understand characters who had suddenly materialized from another century?’ The violent death of a distinguished former ambassador, the Comte de Saint-Hilaire – an old man without political secrets or enemies – confounds Inspector Maigret, until a bundle of letters promises to uncover the tragic truth. ''One of the greatest writers of the twentieth century'' Guardian ‘Gem-hard soul-probes . . . not just the world''s bestselling detective series, but an imperishable literary legend’ Boyd Tonkin, The Times

“A writer as comfortable with reality as with fiction, with passion as with reason.” —John Le Carré With a serial killer on the loose in Paris, Maigret must outsmart the culprit before he can strike again. The inspiration for ITV’s feature-length adaptation starring Rowan Atkinson. Detective Chief Inspector Maigret is known for his infallible instinct, for getting at the truth no matter how complex the case. But when someone starts killing women on the streets of Montmartre, leaving nary a clue and the city’s police force at a loss, he finds himself confounded. In the sweltering Paris summer heat, with the terrified city in a state of siege, Maigret hatches a plan to lure the murderer out.

''His artistry is supreme'' John Banville Eyes half-closed, head tilted against the back of his seat, he seemed not to be thinking, as the plane flew over a thick carpet of bright clouds. In reality, he was making an effort to bring names and shadowy figures to life, names and figures that even this morning had been as unknown to him as the inhabitants of another planet. The attempted suicide of a countess and the death of a billionaire in the same luxury Paris hotel send Maigret to the Riviera and then to Switzerland, as he searches for the truth amid the glittering world of the super-rich. This novel has been published in a previous translation as Maigret and the Millionaires. ''One of the greatest writers of the twentieth century . . . Simenon was unequalled at making us look inside, though the ability was masked by his brilliance at absorbing us obsessively in his stories'' Guardian

“A writer as comfortable with reality as with fiction, with passion as with reason.” —John Le Carré When a young woman with a dark past is found dead on the streets of Paris, Inspector Maigret is on the case A young woman named Lulu, who has a history of brushes with the law and once lived on the streets of the 18th arrondissement, is found murdered in Paris. Maigret is called to the scene and soon learns that her boyfriend, a musician, has gone into hiding upon reading the news of her death. And when the Inspector learns that the young victim was pregnant, he begins to suspect the case might be more sinister than he imagined.