New Releases by 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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

To avoid financial scandal, the banker Ferchaux flees Paris for America. To accompany him as his personal secretary and bodyguard he hires a young boxer, Michel Maudet.

TWO DESPERATELY LONELY, DISILLUSIONED PEOPLE MEET AT A NEW YORK BAR, SPEND THE ENTIRE NIGHT TOGETHER, AND TAKE REFUGE IN A GARISH HOTEL. THEY FALL IN LOVE BUT ARE AFRAID TO BELIEVE A NEW LIFE IS POSSIBLE. TRANSLATION OF TROIS CHAMBRES A MANHATTAN.

''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.