Maigret and the Headless Corpse
Inspector Maigret
Published on 7. September 2017
Book
Paperback/Softback
192 pages
978-0-241-29726-1 (ISBN)
Description
'His artistry is supreme' John Banville
'There was no lack of picturesque individuals in a neighbourhood like Quai de Valmy. But he had seldom encountered the kind of inertia he had seen in that woman. It was hard to explain. When most people look at you, there is some sort of exchange, however small. A contact is established, even if that contact is a kind of defiance.
With her, on the contrary, there was nothing.'
The discovery of a dismembered body in the Canal Saint Martin leads Maigret into a tangled, baffling case involving a taciturn bistro-owner and a mysterious inheritance.
'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'
'There was no lack of picturesque individuals in a neighbourhood like Quai de Valmy. But he had seldom encountered the kind of inertia he had seen in that woman. It was hard to explain. When most people look at you, there is some sort of exchange, however small. A contact is established, even if that contact is a kind of defiance.
With her, on the contrary, there was nothing.'
The discovery of a dismembered body in the Canal Saint Martin leads Maigret into a tangled, baffling case involving a taciturn bistro-owner and a mysterious inheritance.
'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'
Reviews / Votes
One of the greatest writers of the 20th century . . . no other writer can set up a scene as sharply and with such economy as Simenon does . . . the conjuring of a world, a place, a time, a set of characters - above all, an atmosphere -- John Banville * Financial Times * Terrific...the 75 Inspector Maigret books are almost uniformly wonderful. They are not crime or even detective fiction as ordinarily understood...they are about human foibles, moral failings and compromises, set in an evocatively atmospheric Paris -- David Mills * Sunday Times * A great writer of detail, of atmosphere -- Leila Slimani * Financial Times * A genius ... Simenon broke all the rules -- Jake Kerridge * Daily Telegraph * The novels brim with atmosphere, insight and intelligence . . . quite unlike anything else written before or since -- India Knight * The Times * Exceptional... Simenon's writing still seems fresh...one of the great pleasures is the summoning of France's many landscapes and accompanying social milieux . . . There is also, and it's a chief glory of the books, a whole range of different Parises, from the shiny rich to the hypocritical bourgeois middle to the struggling, furious world of the poor, desperate and professionally criminal -- John Lanchester * Times Literary Supplement * I never read contemporary fiction-with one exception: the works of Simenon -- T.S. Eliot One of the most important writers of our century -- Gabriel Garcia Marquez An astute observer of human nature, writing in a spare and vivid style -- Amor TowlesMore details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Penguin Books Ltd
Product notice
Paperback (UK-B)
Dimensions
Height: 197 mm
Width: 128 mm
Thickness: 15 mm
Weight
150 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-241-29726-1 (9780241297261)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Book
07/2023
Penguin Classics
€13.00
Available immediately
E-Book
09/2017
1st Edition
Penguin Books Ltd
€8.99
Available for download
Persons
Georges Simenon was born in Liege, Belgium, in 1903. An intrepid traveller with a profound interest in people, Simenon strove on and off the page to understand, rather than to judge, the human condition in all its shades. His novels include the Inspector Maigret series and a richly varied body of wider work united by its evocative power, its economy of means, and its penetrating psychological insight. He is among the most widely read writers in the global canon. He died in 1989 in Lausanne, Switzerland, where he had lived for the latter part of his life.