Maigret's Memoirs


Book Description

“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 A fictional autobiography of Maigret, Georges Simenon’s brilliant detective In this make-believe memoir, Maigret recounts a meeting with the author himself. The account starts with the arrival of Georges Sim, as he is called here, at the Paris Police Judiciaire to soak up atmosphere for his crime novels by dogging the footsteps of Inspector Maigret. The detective is irritated by the audacious young writer who names a character after him and argues that he oversimplifies, in his fiction, the intricate duties of the police investigating a case. Here, Maigret “sets the record straight,” telling readers how he’s different from the invention, and about his courtship and marriage to his beloved Louise. Ingeniously amusing and tender, Maigret’s Memoirs is a look inside the mind of the brilliant Maigret like never before.




The Man who Wasn't Maigret


Book Description

'Penetrating, fully researched and very well written. It describes this extraordinarily productive literary genius at all stages of his life and adds to an understanding not only of Simenon's art, but the art of the novel itself.' - Muriel Spark in Scotland on Sunday




Maigret and the Informer


Book Description

When a prominent figure from the Paris restaurant world turns up dead, Inspector Maigret is on the case The body of a well-known Parisian restaurateur turns up on Avenue Junot in Montmartre, having seemingly been killed elsewhere. Inspector Maigret dives into the investigation and soon discovers that the murder may be gang-related after a colleague working in the red-light district receives a tip from an anonymous informer. Deeply engrossing, and revealing insights about the class-conscious world of the Paris elite, Maigret and the Informer draws the reader into a complicated case that could hinge on one man's word.




Maigret's Patience


Book Description

'Compelling, remorseless, brilliant' John Gray Maigret finds himself back on the Rue des Acacias just ten days after cracking another case there. This time it is the murder of a criminal Maigret has known for over twenty years and one he always suspected was behind a string of jewellery robberies in the city. Maigret's patience is tested as he eliminates neighbour by neighbour in his hunt for the murderer. This novel has been published in a previous translation as Maigret Bides His Time. '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




Maigret and the Wine Merchant


Book Description




My Friend Maigret


Book Description

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.




When I Was Old


Book Description

'For personal reasons, or for reasons I don't know myself, I began feeling old, and I began keeping notebooks. I was nearing the age of sixty' Georges Simenon's autobiographical notebooks, in which he recorded his observations, experiences, anxieties and 'all the silly ideas that pass through my head', are one of the most candid self-portraits of a writer ever put to paper. Here, as the celebrated author ruthlessly examines his tortuous writing methods, his past, his fame, his intimate relationships and his fears of ageing, the result is an unsparing, often painfully revealing insight into a man trying both to find and to escape himself. 'As revealed in these notebooks, Simenon's is a shrewd, lucid mind ... the balance tips toward the real, the immediate, the mysteries of human complexity above all ... Utterly unpretentious' The New York Times




Three Bedrooms in Manhattan


Book Description

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.




Maigret and the Man on the Bench


Book Description

Mondays are nobody's favorite day, but when Maigret's week begins with a corpse found stabbed to death in a Parisian alley, the Inspector immediately sees a flaw. Murders are rarely committed on Mondays. That clue, along with the victim's strange recent behavior, leads Maigret to the cause of this nasty crime-and reveals the tale of a deadly marriage.




Maigret's Memoirs


Book Description

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