Best Selling Books by Georges Simenon

“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.

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?

A young Frenchman, Joseph Timar, travels to Gabon carrying a letter of introduction from an influential uncle.

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.

“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.

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.

''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

‘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

“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.

''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

“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.

“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.

When Maigret receives a visit from an old schoolmate whose mistress has been shot to death, he feels compelled to look into the case. Yet his friend is one of the suspects--along with the dead woman''s four other lovers, each unknown to the others. The basis for a public television Mystery! presentation. Translated by Eileen Ellenbogen. Maigret is a registered trademark of the Estate of 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.

After the death of Oscar Donadieu, a wealthy shipbuilder and tyrannical patriarch, his family begins to disintegrate, a process enchanced by the arrival of ambitious, angry Phillipe Dargens.