Most Popular Books by Georges Simenon

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.

After being wounded while following a man who had mysteriously jumped off a train, Inspector Maigret becomes caught up in an investigtion in a provincial French town terrorized by a maniacal murderer. Original.

“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 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 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 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?

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.

Inspector Lognon - a plain-clothes detective with a reputation for misfortune - is shot in the street with the word ''ghost'' on his lips. It soon emerges that he spent the night in the nearby apartment of a beautiful young woman, who has since vanished. While the injured man fights for his life in hospital, Chief Superintendent Maigret discovers that the hapless Inspector may finally have been on to something big. And when he encounters suave art dealer Norris Jonker and his glamorous wife Mirella, Maigret begins to wonder if their strange lifestyle is the reason for Lognon''s presence on the Avenue Junot. In Maigret and the Ghost, Simenon''s tenacious detective is perplexed by a constant stream of conflicting evidence as he explores the underground world of art collecting.

“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.

Maigret becomes increasingly frustrated as his attempts to prove that a brutal, repulsive murder has been committed at a local bookbinder prove fruitless, in a mystery that revolves around a series of seemingly unconnected incidents and characters, set amongst the backdrop of the Marais district in Paris, in which Madame Maigret holds the vital clue. Original.

A Helen and Kurt Wolff book.

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?

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

The city of Simenon''s youth comes to life in this new translation of this disturbing novel set in Liège, book ten in the new Penguin Maigret series. In the darkness, the main room is as vast as a cathedral. A great empty space. Some warmth is still seeps from the radiators. Delfosse strikes a match. They stop a moment to catch their breath, and work out how far they have still to go. And suddenly the match falls to the ground, as Delfosse gives a sharp cry and rushes back towards the washroom door. In the dark, he loses his way, returns and bumps into Chabot. Maigret observes from a distance as two boys are accused of killing a rich foreigner in Liège. Their loyalty, which binds them together through their adventures, is put to the test, and seemingly irrelevant social differences threaten their friendship and their freedom. Penguin is publishing the entire series of Maigret novels in new translations. This novel has been published in a previous translation as Maigret at the "Gai-Moulin". ''Compelling, remorseless, brilliant'' John Gray ''One of the greatest writers of the twentieth century'' Guardian ''A supreme writer . . . unforgettable vividness'' Independent

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.

''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

Publisher description

Convinced that Joseph Heurtin, a slow-witted delivery boy, did not commit a brutal murder, Inspector Jules Maigret''s quest for the real killer plunges him into a battle of wits with a criminal mastermind