New Releases by Georges Simenon

It''s closing time at the Gai Moulin, and Jean Chabot and Rene Delfrosse are planning to rob the till to pay of their debts. To their surprise, they stumble upon a dead body. What at first seems to the police an open and shut case proves more complicated when the body turns up next at the zoo, stuffed into a wicker basket. Into the puzzlement steps Maigret, who makes one of the most dramatic and colorful entrances of his career as he sorts out the tangled web of deceit. Maigret is a registered trademark of the Estate of Georges Simenon.

Léonard Planchon, a tense man with a harelip, goes to Maigret with an unusual problem. He wants to kill his wife, or perhaps his wife and her lover, who for two years now have been making him sleep on a cot in the dining room. He has even worked out a plan to hide their bodies in concrete. Uneasily investigating a murder that has not yet been committed, Maigret explores the bistros of Montmartre and uncovers a peculiar--and pathetic--ménage à trois. Maigret is a registered trademark of the Estate of Georges Simenon

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.

Inspector Maigret investigates the death of fortuneteller Mademoiselle Jeanne, a case remarkable for its wealth of unconnected suspects and fragmentary clues

French master detective Maigret investigates the murder of the wife of Francois-Francis and discovers many puzzling circumstances surrounding it...

On Rue de Turenne, two human teeth are found in the old furnace of a Flemish bookbinder, who is taken into custody. A neighboring shoemaker is willing to talk, but his stories vary with each trip he makes to the local tavern. The case seems impossibly perplexing until Madame Maigret leaves her kitchen to offer her husband able assistance. A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book

Inspector Maigret shows the ways of police work to a young writer and reveals his rural upbringing, his first assignment as a bicycle messenger, and how he wooed and won Madame Maigret

A tale of aristocrats fallen on hard times and of a profligate son who, in the final hour, finds unexpected strength of character.

The tidal regularity of life in a quiet village is broken when the local harbor-master is murdered, and Inspector Maigret must force the killer into the open by using all of his famous instincts.

Maigret must discover who killed a poverty-stricken Australian in this deft, psychologically fascinating story of men who kick over the traces--and of men who don''t.

After Inspector Maigret''s assistant Detective Lognon, loses a body, three shady Americans arrive in Paris, and Pozzo, the restaurateur from St. Louis, discovers that he is dealing with professional criminals

Police Inspector Maigret recounts the case of a man accused of the murder of his wife, and Maigret is unable to save the possibly innocent man from the guillotine

Almost anyone could have shot the ex-postmistress of Saint-André-sur-Mer. Why is Maigret there, among an odd assortment of people he has never seen before and charged with the task of digging out their deepest secrets? A secret agenda of his own draws him on.

The Murderer is set in a small town on the flat plains of Holland. Dr. Juperus, a local physician, is a man of meditative deliberation, propelled into action when he learns of his wife''s adultery with one of the town''s leading citizens. The icy calm with which Kuperus prepares methodically for murder rivals the bleak chill of his surroundings. Now, having acted, Kuperus is trapped - in the stuffy little town, behind shuttered windows, inside himself. Fearing discovery, yet craving recognition for his daring, Kuperus is caged within his own four walls. --Book jacket.

Chief Superintendent Maigret investigates three baffling cases of murder and struggles to bring the killers to justice

For a weekend, the Arbelet family stops in Pouilly, at the Hôtel du Cheval-Blanc. Maurice Arbelet is immediately seduced by the atmosphere of the inn: he will keep in his memory the image of a very pleasant place. Singular characters are found there however: Felix, the night watchman, former colonial soldier who''s become messy and cynical, an uncle of Mme Arbelet, lost for years; M. Jean, the owner of the hotel, who abuses his maids, Rose and Thérèse; and the latter''s husband, a Pole, who only shows up when he needs money. Why does Maurice Arbelet come back alone one afternoon to the Cheval-Blanc? This novel explores the hidden links two different milieus have with one another: the landlords of the inn and their employees, and the members of a middle-class family who frequent the restaurant, related to one of those employees.

On an errand of mercy, Maigret travels to a provincial village whose crafty inhabitants nearly foil the sleuth. Translated by Helen Thomson. A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book.

The Inspector has fallen into disfavor with his Paris superiors and has been shunted to a district supervisor''s job on the northern French coast. Here, among mussel-gatherers and lobstermen, Maigret suffers depression and boredom. He is an outsider. Even the local police inspector is dull and predictable, as everything in the coastal villages appears to be. But the discovery of a corpse in the house of a retired judge returns a sense of purpose to Maigret. The Boston Globe called this "one of Simenon''s best Maigrets . . . replete with his customary irony and deft characterization".

One of Simenon''s riveting explorations of female psychology, a study in contrasts between two women who are mutually dependent from their school days. Marie is ugly, of somewhat limited intelligence, but her fixation on her friend gives her an uncanny insight into the other''s nature, intentions, and motivations. Sylvie--cold, vicious, ruthless--is also beautiful and compellingly attractive to men. Her desire to hurt extends to her faithful slave, Marie. For a number of years they lose sight of each other, as Sylvie becomes the adored mistress of a rich and elderly man. How and why Marie re-enters Sylvie''s life and achieves a dominating role in their relationship is described with surgical precision by one of the world''s greatest realistic writers.

The near fatal shooting of a policeman takes Maigret into the art world-and Madame Maigret helps her husband solve the case. Translated by Margaret Duff. A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book.