Showing results by author "Georges Simenon" in All Categories

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.

A sparkling new translation of this flashback to the start of Inspector Maigret's career, part of the new Penguin Maigret series. The profession he had always yearned for did not actually exist...he imagined a cross between a doctor and a priest - a man capable of understanding another's destiny at first glance. The very first investigation by eager young police secretary Jules Maigret leads him to a wealthy Paris family's dark secrets.

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.

Un fâcheux manque de discernement. Emile Maugin apprend du médecin qui l'examine qu'il n'a plus une longue espérance de vie devant lui. Il fait alors un retour sur lui-même : acteur comblé, il règne de manière tyrannique sur son entourage qui vit à ses dépens. Parvenu au faîte de la gloire, il aime à rappeler son enfance misérable dans le Marais vendéen... Adapté pour la télévision en 1988, dans la série "L'heure Simenon", par Milo Dor, avec Armin Mueller-Stahl (Emile), Leopoldo Trieste (Antonio).

When a man’s headless body is discovered in Paris’ Saint-Martin Canal, Maigret is quick to answer the call. It is in this very neighborhood that he meets a strangely taciturn woman who runs a cafe. Her husband is away on a trip - or so she says. As is often the case, Maigret soon learns that there is more to the story than meets the eye.

Set against a high-profile hunt for the latest criminal gang to hit Paris, Maigret is determined to track down the murderer of a quiet crook for whom he cannot help feeling affection and respect. This novel has been published in a previous translation as Maigret and the Idle Burglar.

What else did they have to do with their days? They ambled around casually. From time to time, they paused, not because they were out of breath but to admire a tree, a house, the play of light and shadow, or a face. While taking a much-needed rest cure in Vichy with his wife, Maigret feels compelled to help with a local investigation, unravelling the secrets of the spa town's elegant inhabitants.

Qui a tiré un coup de revolver, en pleine nuit, dans l'hôtel particulier de la puissante famille Gendreau-Balthazar, rue Chaptal ? Tout jeune secrétaire du commissariat du quartier Saint-Georges, Jules Maigret se voit confier une enquête officieuse - car on n'attaque pas de front ces gens de la haute société aux relations influentes. Maigret va habilement débrouiller l'écheveau des secrets de la famille Gendreau.

A brilliant new translation of one of Simenon's best loved masterpieces. 'A certain furtive, almost shameful emotion...disturbed him whenever he saw a train go by, a night train especially, its blinds drawn down on the mystery of its passengers.' Kees Popinga is a respectable Dutch citizen and family man. Then he discovers that his boss has bankrupted the shipping firm he works for - and something snaps.

Maigret finds himself back on the Rue des Acacias just 10 days after cracking another case there. This time it is the murder of a criminal Maigret has known for over 20 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. 

Le cadavre d'une jeune fille est découvert place Vintimille, à Paris. Maigret parvient à identifier la victime : il s'agit de Louise Laboine, d'origine niçoise. En venant tenter sa chance à Paris quelques années plus tôt, elle se lie d'amitié dans le train avec Jeanine Armenieu, une jeune Lyonnaise.

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.

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.

Frank ha diciannove anni ed è figlio dell’attraente tenutaria di una casa di appuntamenti in una città del Nord durante l’occupazione nazista. Freddo, scostante, insolente, solitario, Frank vuole in segreto una cosa sola: iniziarsi alla vita. E crede che il modo migliore per farlo sia uccidere qualcuno senza ragione. Con sbalorditiva sicurezza, Simenon entra nella testa di questo personaggio al limite fra l’abiezione e una paradossale innocenza, e intorno a lui fa vivere il mondo della neve sporca – la sordida scena di una città dove tutto è tradimento, rancore, doppio gioco.

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, of course, a notorious local crook.

À Paris, une nuit de mars, deux bateliers tirent de la Seine un clochard grièvement blessé. L'un d'eux, le jeune Van Houtte, affirme avoir noté la présence d'une Peugeot 403 rouge sur le quai, peu de temps avant le drame. Maigret retrouve les occupants de la voiture, mais ceux-ci parviennent à prouver leur innocence. L'identification du clochard ne va pas sans surprises : il s'agit d'un ancien médecin du nom de François Keller.

Un coup de téléphone de Porquerolles informe Maigret du meurtre d'un certain Marcellin qui, peu de temps avant sa mort, a prétendu être un "ami" du commissaire. En fait, Maigret l'a connu autrefois, lorsqu'il a fait admettre au sanatorium son amie Ginette qui était tuberculeuse (alors que Marcellin lui-même était en prison). Maigret se rend sur place, en compagnie de l'inspecteur Pyke, de Scotland Yard, venu en France pour étudier les méthodes du célèbre commissaire parisien.

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.

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.

Maigret est tiré de sa retraite, à Meung-sur-Loire, par un très jeune homme qu'accompagne un vieux notaire de famille ; Jean Maura est inquiet au sujet de son père, important homme d'affaire qui habite New York : ses lettres, toujours d'une grande affection, le montrent angoissé depuis quelque temps. Maigret accepte d'accompagner Jean Maura à New York. Au moment de débarquer, Jean Maura disparaît inexplicablement.