New Releases by Georges Simenon

“A writer as comfortable with reality as with fiction, with passion as with reason.” —John Le Carré While on holiday, Inspector Maigret is drawn into the murder of a teenage girl and subsequent disappearance of her brother and must confront an evil that is hidden in plain sight During their holidays in Sables-d’Olonne, Maigret’s wife is hospitalized with appendicitis and Maigret receives a strange note instructing him to visit a patient in another ward. To solve the mysterious case that has left a young woman dead and her brother missing, Maigret must give one of his best performances yet in a story laced with mood, class tension, and in the end, of course, justice.

“A writer as comfortable with reality as with fiction, with passion as with reason.” —John Le Carré When the son of a wealthy businessman fears for his father’s life, Maigret is plucked from retirement to visit New York on an unlikely quest Aged 56 and in his first year of retirement at Meung-sur-Loire, Maigret is surprised with a visit by Jean, the son of wealthy New York businessman John Maura. With the assistance of his aging lawyer, Jean convinces Maigret to accompany him to New York, where he believes his father is in danger. But things take an unexpected turn upon their arrival when it is Jean himself who disappears. Set against the mysterious backdrop of New York City, Maigret’s investigation must unearth old crimes, outsmart treacherous characters, and overcome his status as an outsider policeman in the city.

“A writer as comfortable with reality as with fiction, with passion as with reason.” —John Le Carré Inspector Maigret is drawn out of retirement when a young woman is found dead in the Seine and her grandmother turns up at his door Two years into his retirement at Meung-sur-Loire, Maigret has yet to come across a case compelling enough to tempt him back into the business. But when 18-year-old Monita Malik is found dead in the Seine River, he is all but ordered to the small town of Orsennes by the girl’s grandmother. There, Maigret encounters Ernest Malik, an old acquaintance from his school days whom he’s always disliked on instinct, and it quickly becomes clear that Maigret’s presence is not welcome in Orsenne. When others from Orsenne’s elite families begin to go missing as well, Maigret can’t help but be swept up in the mystery.

“One of the greatest writers of the twentieth century . . . Simenon was unequaled at making us look inside, though the ability was masked by his brilliance at absorbing us obsessively in his stories.” —The Guardian Maigret dismantles an intricate network of lies stretching from Paris to Nice in this page-turning mystery “Mechanically, he had put his pince-nez down on the blotter and looked at it there with his large, short-sighted eyes. It is at that moment that the strange thing happens. One of the lenses, acting as a mirror, reflected the criss-cross, hatched ink marks which had dried on the blotter and he could just make out a couple of words.” When a fortune-teller is found murdered in her apartment, Maigret must find out not only who commited the crime, but why it was predicted in a note found earlier—signed by the unknown Picpus.

''Compelling, remorseless, brilliant'' John Gray Maigret plunges into the murky Parisian underworld in book twenty-nine of the new Penguin Maigret series. ''That shoeless foot looked incongruous lying on the pavement next to another foot encased in a shoe made of black kid leather. It was naked, private . . . It was Maigret who retrieved the other shoe which lay by the kerb six or seven metres away'' A series of strange phone calls leads Inspector Maigret through the Paris streets towards a man out of his depth amid a network of merciless criminals. This novel has been published in a previous translation as Maigret''s Special Murder. ''His artistry is supreme'' John Banville ''A supreme writer . . . unforgettable vividness'' Independent

“A writer as comfortable with reality as with fiction, with passion as with reason.” —John Le Carré Master novelist Georges Simenon’s critically acclaimed tale of the destructive power of lust and guilt “He felt no resentment towards Andree for biting his lip. In the context of their lovemaking, it had its place.” For Tony and Andree, there are no rules when they meet in the blue room at the Hotel des Voyageurs. Their adulterous affair is intoxicating, passionate—and dangerous. It soon turns into a nightmare from which there can be no escape. Heart-pounding and high-stakes, The Blue Room is a stylish and sensual psychological thriller that weaves a story of cruelty, reckless lust, and relentless guilt.

“A writer as comfortable with reality as with fiction, with passion as with reason.” —John Le Carré An Inspector Maigret mystery that brings the dark side of glamorous expat life in Paris to life In this riveting mystery from Georges Simenon, Maigret must investigate the murder of Mrs. Clark, the wife of a wealthy American industrialist, whose strangled body is found in the basement of an upscale hotel near the Champs-Élysées. Maigret’s inquiries take him from the endless corridors of the Hotel Majestic to the countryside of the Bois de Boulogne and sun-drenched Cannes, into a world of illicit sex work, drug addiction, and blackmail.

“A writer as comfortable with reality as with fiction, with passion as with reason.” —John Le Carré A moving novel about the destructive power of greed starring the unrivaled Inspector Maigret “Poor Cécile! And yet she was still young. Maigret had seen her papers: barely twenty-eight years old. But it would be difficult to look more like an old maid, to move less gracefully, in spite of the care she took to be friendly and pleasant. Those black dresses that she must make for herself from bad paper patterns, that ridiculous green hat!” In the dreary suburbs of Paris, the merciless greed of a seemingly respectable woman is unearthed by her long suffering niece, and Maigret discovers the far-reaching consequences of their actions.

“A writer as comfortable with reality as with fiction, with passion as with reason.” —John Le Carré The basis for the 1947 French film noir classic Panique, which was rereleased in January 2017 Georges Simenon’s chilling portrayal of tragic love, persecution and betrayal “One sensed in him neither flesh nor bone, nothing but soft, flaccid matter, so much so that his movements were hard to make out. Very red lips stood out from his orb-like face, as did the thin moustache that he curled with an iron and looked as if it had been drawn on with India ink; on his cheekbones were the symmetrical pink dots of a doll''s cheeks.” People find Mr. Hire strange, disconcerting. The tenants in his building try to avoid him. He is a peeping Tom, a frequent client of sex workers, a dealer in unsavory literature. He is also the prime suspect for a brutal murder that he did not commit. But Mr. Hire’s innocence will not stand in the way of those looking for a scapegoat as tragedy unfolds in this quietly devastating and deeply unnerving novel.

“A writer as comfortable with reality as with fiction, with passion as with reason.” —John Le Carré Inspector Maigret loses himself in coastal luxury—and danger—in this devastating mystery set on the French Riviera “It had a smell of holidays. The previous evening, in Cannes Harbour, with the setting sun, had also had the smell of holidays, especially the Ardena, whose owner swaggered in front of two girls with gorgeous figures...” Dazzled at first by the glamour of sunny Antibes, Maigret soon finds himself immersed in the less salubrious side of the Riviera as he retraces the final steps of a local eccentric.

“A writer as comfortable with reality as with fiction, with passion as with reason.” —John Le Carré A chilling Inspector Maigret mystery set on the Belgian border “She wasn''t an ordinary supplicant. She didn''t lower her eyes. There was nothing humble about her bearing. She spoke frankly, looking straight ahead, as if to claim what was rightfully hers. ‘If you don''t agree to look at our case, my parents and I will be lost, and it will be the most hateful legal error...’” Maigret is asked to the windswept, rainy border town of Givet by a young woman desperate to clear her family of murder. But their well-kept shop, the sleepy community and its raging river all hide their own mysteries.

“A writer as comfortable with reality as with fiction, with passion as with reason.” —John Le Carré Maigret’s past comes to life in this evocative novel, set in the Inspector’s hometown “Maigret savoured the sensations of his youth again: the cold, stinging eyes, frozen fingertips, an aftertaste of coffee. Then, stepping inside the church, a blast of heat, soft light; the smell of candles and incense.” The last time Maigret went home to the village of his birth was for his father’s funeral. Now, an anonymous note predicting a crime during All Souls’ Day mass draws him back there, where troubling memories resurface and hidden vices are revealed.

“A writer as comfortable with reality as with fiction, with passion as with reason.” —John Le Carré The first-ever English publication of Georges Simenon’s compelling novel about summer escape and elusive obsessions “The island itself. Its throbbing heat as if in a belljar under the sun, the scorpion in his son’s bed, the deafening sound of cicadas.” During his first holiday on the island of Porquerolles, Dr. Mahé caught a glimpse of something irresistible. As the memory continues to haunt him, he falls prey to a delusion that may offer an escape from his conventional existence—or may destroy him. Taut, insightful, and impossible to put down, this is the first English translation of The Mahé Circle, Simenon’s dark, malevolent depiction of an ordinary man trapped in mundanity and consumed by obsession.

“A writer as comfortable with reality as with fiction, with passion as with reason.” —John Le Carré A gripping domestic tragedy starring Inspector Maigret and set in Simenon’s very own neighborhood “One by one the lighted windows went dark. The silhouette of the dead man could still be seen through the frosted glass like a Chinese shadow puppet. A taxi pulled up. It wasn''t the public prosecutor yet. A young woman crossed the courtyard with hurried steps, leaving a whiff of perfume in her wake.” Summoned to the dimly-lit Place des Vosges one night, where he sees shadowy figures at apartment windows, Maigret uncovers a tragic story of desperate lives, unhappy families, addiction and a terrible, fatal greed.

A new translation of Georges Simenon''s novel set in claustraphobic provincial town, book eighteen in the new Penguin Maigret series. Cars drove past along with the trucks and trams, but by now Maigret had realised that they were not important. Whatever roared by like this along the road was not part of the landscape. ... What really counted was the lock, the hooting of the tugs, the stone crusher, the barges and the cranes, the two pilots'' bars and especially the tall house where he could make out Ducrau''s red chair framed by a window. Penguin is publishing the entire series of Maigret novels in new translations. This novel has been published in a previous translation as The Lock at Charenton. ''Compelling, remorseless, brilliant'' John Gray ''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 supreme writer . . . unforgettable vividness'' Independent

“A writer as comfortable with reality as with fiction, with passion as with reason.” —John Le Carré A forgotten crime comes to light in the heart of Parisian summer in this twisted Inspector Maigret tale “A radiant late afternoon. The sunshine almost as thick as syrup in the quiet streets of the Left Bank . . . there are days like this, when ordinary life seems heightened, when the people walking down the street, the trams and cars all seem to exist in a fairy tale.” A story told by a condemned man leads Maigret to a bar by the Seine and into the sleazy underside of respectable Parisian life. In the oppressive heat of summer, a forgotten crime comes to light.

A new translation of Georges Simenon''s gripping tale of lost identity. Book sixteen in the new Penguin Maigret series. A man picked up for wandering in obvious distress among the cars and buses on the Grands Boulevards. Questioned in French, he remains mute . . . A madman? In Maigret''s office, he is searched. His suit is new, his underwear is new, his shoes are new. All identifying labels have been removed. No identification papers. No wallet. Five crisp thousand-franc bills have been slipped into one of his pockets. A distressed man is found wandering the streets of Paris, with no memory of who he is or how he got there. The answers lead Maigret to a small harbour town, whose quiet citizens conceal a poisonous malice. Penguin is publishing the entire series of Maigret novels in new translations. This novel has been published in a previous translation as Death of a Harbour Master. ''Compelling, remorseless, brilliant'' John Gray ''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 supreme writer . . . unforgettable vividness'' Independent

A new translation of Simenon''s tense novel, book fifteen in the new Penguin Maigret series. He recalled his travelling companion''s agitated sleep - was it really sleep? - his sighs, and his sobbing. Then the two dangling legs, the patent-leather shoes and hand-knitted socks . . . An insipid face. Glazed eyes. And Maigret was not surprised to see a grey beard eating into his cheeks. A distressed passenger leaps off a night train and vanishes into the woods. Maigret, on his way to a well-earned break in the Dordogne, is soon plunged into the pursuit of a madman, hiding amongst the seemingly respectable citizens of Bergerac. Penguin is publishing the entire series of Maigret novels in new translations. ''Compelling, remorseless, brilliant'' John Gray ''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 supreme writer . . . unforgettable vividness'' Independent

“A writer as comfortable with reality as with fiction, with passion as with reason.” —John Le Carré A gripping mystery from Georges Simenon in which Inspector Maigret must go up against small town suspicion—and revenge In a small, seaside town in the northwest of France, the local wine dealer is wounded by a gunshot while retuning home drunk from a hotel bar. Maigret, who is heading up a mobile squad of the Paris police force, is called in by the mayor to solve the crime. But upon settling down in the hotel, Maigret quickly discovers a curious cast of characters awaits him there—and they all have something to hide. In the course of this strange case, a customs official is shot, a retired journalist is lost and found, and a vagrant is attested, but through it all Maigret has his sights set firmly in the direction of the truth, even as a strange yellow dog haunts the neighborhood. Fast-paced and wholly unpredictable, The Yellow Dog is a sharp mystery set against the cutthroat backdrop of small town politics.

''The father of contemporary European detective fiction'' Ann Cleeves ''Just take a look,'' Duclos said in an undertone, pointing to the scene all round them, the picture-book town, with everything in its place, like ornaments on the mantlepiece of a careful housewife . . . ''Everyone here earns his living. Everyone''s more or less content. And above all, everyone keeps his instincts under control, because that''s the rule here, and a necessity if people want to live in society.'' When a French professor visiting the quiet, Dutch coastal town of Delfzjil is accused of murder, Maigret is sent to investigate. The community seem happy to blame an unknown outsider, but there are people much closer to home who seem to know much more than they''re letting on: Beetje, the dissatisfied daughter of a local farmer, Any van Elst, sister-in-law of the deceased and a notorious local crook. This novel has been published in a previous translation as Maigret in Holland. ''Compelling, remorseless, brilliant'' John Gray ''A supreme writer . . . unforgettable vividness'' Independent

Is Carl Andersen innocent of murder, or a very good liar? Detective Chief Inspector Maigret has been interrogating the enigmatic Danish aristocrat for seventeen hours. A diamond merchant was found dead, shot at point-blank range, in the garage of Andersen’s mansion, yet he will not confess to the crime. To get to the truth, Maigret must delve into the secrets of Three Widows Crossroads, the isolated neighbourhood where he lives with his mysterious, reclusive sister Else – and where, it seems, everyone has something to hide.

“A writer as comfortable with reality as with fiction, with passion as with reason.” —John Le Carré In Simenon’s iconic first novel featuring Inspector Maigret, the laconic detective is taken from grimy bars to luxury hotels as he traces a fraudster’s true identity Inspector Jules Maigret, a taciturn detective and commissaire of the Paris Brigade Criminelle, receives notice from Interpol that a notorious conman known only as Peitr the Latvian is en route to France. Armed with a broad description and a scant few clues, Maigret plans to intercept him at the train station outside Paris. But when he arrives, he finds that there are several suspects—some living, and some dead—who meet the description uncannily well. Who is Pietr the Latvian, truly? A vagrant, a seaman, a businessman, a corpse? Russian, Norwegian, American or Latvian? In Pietr the Latvian, the iconic first novel of Simenon’s classic series that made Inspector Maigret a legendary figure in the annals of detective fiction, Maigret must use his every instinct to unravel the mystery and track down the truth.

The second book in the new Penguin Maigret series: Georges Simenon''s devastating tale of misfortune, betrayal and the weakness of family ties, in a new translation by Anthea Bell. Instead of the detail filling itself in and becoming clearer, it seemed to escape him. The face of the man in the ill-fitting coat just misted up so that it hardly looked human. In theory this mental portrait was good enough, but now it was replaced by fleeting images which should have added up to one and the same man but which refused to get themselves into focus. The circumstances of Monsieur Gallet''s death all seem fake: the name the deceased was travelling under and his presumed profession, and more worryingly, his family''s grief. Their haughtiness seems to hide ambiguous feelings about the hapless man. In this haunting story, Maigret discovers the appalling truth and the real crime hidden behind the surface of lies. Penguin is publishing the entire series of Maigret novels in new translations. This novel has been published in previous translations as Maigret Stonewalled and The Death of Monsieur Gallet. ''Compelling, remorseless, brilliant'' John Gray ''One of the greatest writers of the twentieth century'' Guardian ''A supreme writer . . . unforgettable vividness'' Independent

An actor, recently divorced, at loose ends in New York; a woman, no less lonely, perhaps even more desperate than the man: they meet by chance in an all-night diner and are drawn to each other on the spot. Roaming the city streets, hitting its late-night dives, dropping another coin into yet another jukebox, these two lost souls struggle to understand what it is that has brought them, almost in spite of themselves, together. They are driven—from moment to moment, from bedroom to bedroom—to improvise the most unexpected of love stories, a tale of suspense where risk alone offers salvation. Georges Simenon was the most popular and prolific of the twentieth century’s great 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.

Newly translated for this edition. A young Frenchman, Joseph Timar, travels to Gabon carrying a letter of introduction from an influential uncle. He wants work experience; he wants to see the world. But in the oppressive heat and glare of the equator, Timar doesn’t know what to do with himself, and no one seems inclined to help except Adèle, the hotel owner’s wife, who takes him to bed one day and rebuffs him the next, leaving him sick with desire. But then, in the course of a single night, Adèle’s husband dies and a black servant is shot, and Timar is sure that Adèle is involved. He’ll cover for the crime if she’ll do what he wants. The fix is in. But Timar can’t even begin to imagine how deep. In Tropic Moon, Simenon, the master of the psychological novel, offers an incomparable picture of degeneracy and corruption in a colonial outpost.

Restored to print for the first time in more than forty years, The President was hailed by the New York Times as a “tour de force” At 82, the former premier lives in alert and suspicious retirement—self exile—on the Normandy coast, writing his anxiously anticipated memoirs and receiving visits from statesman and biographers. In his library is the self-condemning, handwritten confession of the premier’s former attaché, Chalamont, hidden between the pages of a sumptuously produced work of privately printed pornography—a confession that the premier himself had dictated and forced Chalamont to sign. Now the long-thwarted Chalamont has been summoned to form a new coalition in the wake of the government’s collapse. The premier alone possesses the secret of Chalamont’s guilt, of his true character—and has publicly vowed: “He’ll never be Premier as long as I’m alive... Nor when I’m dead, either.” Inspired by French Premier Georges Clemenceau, The President is a masterpiece of psychological suspense and a probing account of the decline of power.

For forty years Charles Alavoine has sleepwalked through his life. Growing up as a good boy in the grip of a domineering mother, he trains as a doctor, marries, opens a medical practice in a quiet country town, and settles into an existence of impeccable bourgeois conformity. And yet at unguarded moments this model family man is haunted by a sense of emptiness and futility. Then, one night, laden with Christmas presents, he meets Martine. It is time for the sleeper to awake.

Against all expectations Marcel Féron has made a “normal” life in a bucolic French suburb in the Ardennes. But on May 10, 1940, as Nazi tanks approach, this timid, happy man must abandon his home and confront the “Fate” that he has secretly awaited. Separated from his pregnant wife and young daughter in the chaos of flight, he joins a freight car of refugees hurtling southward ahead of the pursuing invaders. There, he meets Anna, a sad-looking, dark- haired girl, whose accent is “neither Belgian nor German,” and who “seemed foreign to everything around her.” As the mystery of Anna’s identity is gradually revealed, Marcel leaps from the heights of an exhilarating freedom to the depths of a terrifying responsibility—one that will lead him to a blood-chilling choice. When it first appeared in English in 1964, British novelist and critic Brigid Brophy declared The Train to be “the novel his admirers had been expecting all along from Simenon.” Until The Train, she wrote, the dazzlingly prolific novelist had been “a master without a masterpiece.”

Three vintage Maigret novels by legendary mystery author Georges Simenon One of the world ''s most successful crime writers, Georges Simenon has thrilled mystery lovers since 1931 with his matchless creation Inspector Maigret. In My Friend Maigret, Inspector Maigret investigates the murder of a small- time crook on a Mediterranean island. Told in Simenon''s spare, unsentimental prose, Inspector Cadaver is a haunting exploration of provincial hypocrisy and snobbery, in which Maigret encounters a rival sleuth from his past. In Maigret and the Man on the Boulevard, Simenon''s tenacious detective pieces together the life of a man who for three years lived a secret life-until he is found stabbed to death in an alleyway.

In The Friend of Madame Maigret, Simenon?s economic prose brilliantly portrays the Marais quarter of Paris and those who haunt its narrow streets as Inspector Maigret attempts to prove that a murder has actually been committed without a corpse anywhere to be found. As the investigation becomes increasingly complex, seemingly unconnected characters are drawn into the case, and Maigret begins to wonder if his wife?s earlier strange encounter with a woman and her baby may be the missing link.