Inspector Maigret Mysteries Series

The small French town of Concarneau is a summer resort. In winter it becomes the deserted, rainswept scene for a series of murder attempts that attract the interest of Maigret. While his assistant Leroy uses "science" and "deductions" to trace the murderer, Maigret's instincts unerringly guide him to the real killer past a labyrinth of fascinating characters: a paranoid failed medical doctor turned real-estate shark; a passive, working class waitress whose heart secretly burns a torch of passion; an aristocratic politician who pressures Maigret to "make some arrests"; and a snarling stray dog that knows the murderer's real identity.

A Man's Head

by Georges Simenon

Published 29 May 2003

'The father of contemporary European detective fiction' Ann Cleeves

'Let's be clear that it's not your professionalism which I question. If you understand nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing, it's because from the very start you've been working with facts which had been falsified.'

Maigret sets out to prove the innocence of a man condemned to death for a brutal murder. As his audacious plan to uncover the truth unfolds, he encounters rich American expatriates, some truly dangerous characters and their hidden motives.

This novel has been published in previous translations as Maigret's War of Nerves and A Battle of Nerves.

'Maigret emerges as a master of intuition and imagination, who moves in a world rendered intensely real in Simenon's incomparable prose' Christopher Hirst, Independent

My Friend Maigret

by Georges Simenon

Published 29 May 2003

Maigret is going about his work in rainy Paris, followed around by Inspector Pyke who has come from Scotland Yard to study the famous French detective's methods. Routine is disturbed when Maigret receives a telephone call from the island of Porquerolles off the Mediterranean coast. A small-time crook has been murdered, the night after he had fervently declared his friendship with Maigret in front of a large group of the island's inhabitants. Maigret and Inspector Pyke leave the greyness of Paris for the sunshine of Porquerolles where Simenon creates a wonderfully evocative atmosphere of the square and café, the brilliant sea, the humidity in the air and the life and individuality of each of the inhabitants on the small island.

Maigret and the Burglar's Wife

by Georges Simenon

Published 1 May 1990

Maigret and the Saturday Caller

by Georges Simenon

Published January 1968

“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 is visited by a troubled man and asks him to keep in touch, hoping to curtail his criminal impulses--but when the man disappears, Maigret must investigate a crime that may or may not have occurred

When Maigret returns home at the end of a long day, he is surprised to find a tense man named Léonard Planchon waiting on his doorstep with an unusual problem. Planchon wants to kill his wife, or perhaps his wife and her lover, who for two years 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. Uneasy and hoping to stop the man before he goes too far, Maigret must investigate a murder that has not yet been committed and uncover the truth behind this peculiar ménage à trois.

A fast-paced, psychologically astute mystery, Maigret and the Saturday Caller follows the inspector through Montmartre as he patiently questions Parisian partiers, bartenders, and others as to Planchon's whereabouts, stripping away a bit more of the mystery's camouflage with each encounter until they lead him to their shocking conclusion.

Inspector Cadaver

by Georges Simenon

Published 1 August 2000

'Compelling, remorseless, brilliant' John Gray

In everyone's eyes, even the old ladies hiding behind their quivering curtains, even the kids just now who had turned to stare after they had passed him, he was the intruder, the undesirable. No, worse, he was fundamentally untrustworthy, some stranger who had just turned up from who knew where to do who knew what.

Maigret's old colleague becomes an unexpected rival in book twenty-four of the new Penguin Maigret series.

Penguin is publishing the entire series of Maigret novels in new translations. This novel has been published in a previous translation as Maigret's Rival.

'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

Maigret and the Man on the Boulevard

by Georges Simenon

Published 18 September 1975

Lock 14

by Georges Simenon

Published 29 May 2003

One rainy night, a canal worker stumbles across the strangled body of Mary Lampson in a stable near Lock 14. The dead woman's husband seems unmoved by her death and is curt and unhelpful when Maigret interviews him aboard his yacht. But gradually Maigret is able to piece together their story - a sordid tale of whisky-fuelled orgies and nomadic life on the canals. Can the answer to this crime be found aboard the yacht? Or is the murderer among the bargees, carters and lock-keepers who work the canal? In Lock 14, Simenon plunges Maigret into the unfamiliar canal world of shabby bars and shadowy towpaths, drawing together the strands of a tragic case of lost identity.

The Friend of Madame Maigret

by Georges Simenon

Published 4 December 2003

Maigret becomes increasingly frustrated as his attempts to prove that a brutal, repulsive murder has been committed at a local bookbinder prove fruitless. The mystery revolves around a series of seemingly unconnected incidents and characters, creating an intricate and complicated narrative set amongst the backdrop of the Marais district of Paris. Eventually it is the intelligent and compassionate Madame Maigret who provides the vital clue.

Inspector Maigret

by Georges Simenon

Published 3 April 2001