Showing results by author "Georges Simenon" in All Categories

George Simenon's devastating tale of misfortune, betrayal and the weakness of family ties, translated 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.

Georges Simenon's tragic tale of lost identity, translated by David Coward as part of the new Penguin Maigret series. What was the woman doing here? In a stable, wearing pearl earrings, her stylish bracelet and white buckskin shoes! She must have been alive when she got there because the crime had been committed after 10 in the evening. But how? And why? And no one had heard a thing! She had not screamed. The two carters had not woken up.

The first audiobook which appeared in Georges Simenon's famous Maigret series, in a gripping new translation by David Bellos.Inevitably Maigret was a hostile presence in the Majestic. He constituted a kind of foreign body that the hotel's atmosphere could not assimilate. Not that he looked like a cartoon policeman. He didn't have a moustache and he didn't wear heavy boots. His clothes were well cut and made of fairly light worsted. He shaved every day and looked after his hands. But his frame was proletarian. He was a big, bony man.

When Maigret's .45 revolver is stolen from his home, he becomes embroiled in a murder in which the gun may have played a deadly role. Maigret is the victim of a burglary in which the .45 revolver he had received as a gift from the FBI is stolen. That evening Maigret attends a dinner where François Lagrange, an acquaintance of Maigret's friend, is expected but fails to appear due to ill health. Following his instincts, Maigret decides to investigate Lagrange's absence and uncovers a body stowed in a trunk....

Four full-cast dramatisations starring Maurice Denham as Inspector Maigret and Michael Gough as his creator Georges Simenon. Simenon and his masterful inspector, Jules Maigret, look back together over four of their greatest cases… Where is the vital report that holds the key to the fate of the French government? What is the secret behind the mysterious suicide in Bremen? Who is responsible for the sudden disappearance of one of Paris’s best known solicitors? And will the demented double murderer strike again?

A young cabaret dancer in a black silk dress leads Maigret into a seamy world of nightclubs, drug addiction and exploitation on the streets of Montmartre. 'He opened the door for her and watched her walk away down the huge corridor, then hesitate at the top of the stairs. Heads turned as she passed. You sensed she came from a different world, the world of the night, and there was something almost indecent about her in the harsh light of a winter's day.'

Maurice Denham is the famous French detective Maigret, and Michael Gough is his creator, Georges Simenon, in five classic radio dramatisations. First broadcast in 1976, the episodes are 'Maigret Goes Home', 'Maigret in Montmartre', 'Maigret Has Scruples', 'Maigret in Society' and 'Maigret Sets a Trap'. Maigret is an enduringly popular character, first appearing in print in 1931 and most recently filmed for television starring Rowan Atkinson.

People find Mr Hire strange, disconcerting. The tenants he shares his building with try to avoid him. He is a Peeping Tom, a visitor of prostitutes, a dealer in unsavoury literature. He is also the prime suspect for a brutal murder that he did not commit. Yet 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 audiobook.

He needed to get out of his office, soak up the atmosphere and discover different worlds with each new investigation. He needed the cafés and bars where he so often ended up waiting, at the counter, drinking a beer or a calvados depending on the circumstances. He needed to do battle patiently in his office with a suspect who refused to talk and sometimes, after hours and hours, he'd obtain a dramatic confession. In Simenon's final novel featuring Inspector Maigret, the famous detective reaches a pivotal moment in his career.

Georges Simenon's haunting tale about the lengths to which people will go to escape from guilt, translated by Linda Coverdale as part of the new Penguin Maigret series. A first ink drawing showed a hanged man swinging from a gallows on which perched an enormous crow. And there were at least twenty other etchings and pen or pencil sketches that had the same leitmotif of hanging. On the edge of a forest: a man hanging from every branch.

Set in the in the atmospheric and squalid streets of Paris, Maigret sets out to prove the innocence of a man condemned to death for a brutal murder. In another one of Maigret's unconventional and audacious plans, he arranges the escape of the condemned man in an attempt to prove his theory. The presumed murderer goes on the run across Paris and its suburbs, dropping misleading clues along the way and leading Maigret into the labyrinthine twists of the mystery.

'Maigret looked at him in some confusion, wondering if he was dealing with a skilful actor or, on the contrary, with a sickly little man who found consolation in a subtle sense of humour.' A series of anonymous letters leads Maigret into the wealthy household of an eminent lawyer and a curious game of cat and mouse with Paris high society.

What was it about him that had struck Maigret so forcefully? Little John had cold eyes! Four or five times in his life, he had met people with cold eyes, those eyes that can stare at you without establishing any human contact. Persuaded to sail to New York by a fearful young law student, Maigret finds himself drawn into the city's underworld and a wealthy businessman's closely guarded past.

Maigret sets the record straight and tells the story of his own life, giving a rare glimpse into the mind of the great inspector - and the writer who would immortalise him. 'I can still see Simenon coming into my office the next day, pleased with himself, displaying even more self-confidence, if possible, than before, but nevertheless with a touch of anxiety in his eyes.... He trumpeted these last words as if they were a sensational discovery. Making it seem truer than life, that's the crux of it. Well, I've made you truer than life.'

A new translation, by David Bellos, of this chilling novel, 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.

Madame Maigret takes the lead in a disturbing investigation in this new translation, book 34 of the Maigret series. Inspector Maigret's wife turns sleuth after a strange encounter in a Paris square leads her on the trail of a woman in a white hat and towards a grisly tale of deception and greed.

A new translation of this moving novel about the destructive power of greed. Poor Cécile! And yet she was still young. Maigret had seen her papers: barely 28 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!

At a dinner party, Maigret recounts an old case in which Adrien Josset is found guilty and executed for the murder of his wife, Christine. As the case develops under the controlling hand of the magistrate, all clues point to Josset's guilt, yet Maigret is left unconvinced following his one interview with him. Years after the case, Maigret still doubts the true identity of the murderer. This novel has been published in a previous translation as Maigret Has Doubts.

The Yellow Dog’ sees Maigret upsetting the citizens of Concarneau as he begins his murder investigation. But there is poison in the Pernod, a howling yellow dog and, it seems, a madman on the loose... In ‘Maigret and the Burglar’s Wife’, "Sad Freddie" is committing a burglary when he discovers the body of a dead woman, holding a telephone in her hand. Can Maigret believe the burglar’s wife in the face of other evidence?

Maigret grapples with the American justice system on a trip to Arizona in this new translation, novel 32 of the new Penguin Maigret series. The FBI man was convinced, in short, that Maigret was a big shot in his own country but that here, in the United States, he was incapable of figuring out anything.... Well, Maigret happened to believe that men and their passions are the same everywhere.