‘Maigret moved slowly, edging his bulky frame through the throng in Rue Saint-Antoine, which burst into life every morning, the sunshine streaming down from a clear sky on to the little barrows piled high with fruit and vegetables’

In these three tales of deception, set in and around Paris, Simenon's celebrated detective uncovers chilling truths about the depths of the human instinct for self-preservation.

When Maigret's prized gun goes missing, he must travel to London on the trail of a troubled young man on the run. Maigret's Revolver is a wonderful picture of both London and Paris and one of Simenon's most ingenious and satisfying stories. '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

'The new crime and espionage series from Penguin Classics makes for a mouth-watering prospect' Daily Telegraph A baffling case. A mysterious inheritance. It starts when a man's arm is fished out of Paris's Canal Saint-Martin. Then the rest of the body is retrieved - apart from the head. Inspector Maigret is determined to unearth the truth behind this disturbing murder. When he meets the strangely taciturn owner of a shabby local bistro, Madame Calas, who says her husband is away, the pieces start to fall into place. But, as the dogged, laconic detective discovers, nothing in this tangled case is as it seems.

'A unique teller of tales ... What interested Simenon was the average man losing control of his own fate' Observer 'She was beautiful, full of vitality, and he was sixteen years older, a dusty, lonely bookseller whose only passion in life was collecting stamps.' Jonas is used to his young wife disappearing. Everyone in the town knows that she goes off with other men. This time, however, he tells a small lie to protect her, saying she is visiting a school friend. It is a lie, however, that eats into him like an illness, provoking hostility and resentment of this timid little Russian-Jewish bookseller, who always thought he had been accepted. As suspicion mounts, his true, terrifying isolation is revealed.

The first novel which appeared in Georges Simenon's famous Maigret series, in a gripping new translation by David Bellos. 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. His firm muscles filled out his jacket and quickly pulled all his trousers out of shape. He had a way of imposing himself just by standing there. His assertive presence had often irked many of his own colleagues. In Simenon's first novel featuring Maigret, the laconic detective is taken from grimy bars to luxury hotels as he traces the true identity of Pietr the Latvian. This novel has been published in previous translations as The Case of Peter the Lett and Maigret and the Enigmatic Lett. 'Compelling, remorseless, brilliant' John Gray 'One of the greatest writers of the twentieth century' Guardian

'Quite simply a masterpiece' John Banville 'I've just found a stranger in my house. In a bed on the second floor. He was dying when I got there. You're going to have to deal with it' Hector Loursat has been a drunken recluse since his wife left him eighteen years ago. Shut away in his dilapidated mansion in the small town of Moulins, he barely speaks to his daughter. But when the sound of a gunshot penetrates the padded walls of his study one night, and he discovers a body, Loursat is forced to act. No longer able to ignore the world, he determines to get to the truth of what happened, and save an innocent life.

'One of his most erotic and emotionally charged stories' The Times Two people who didn't know each other and who had come together by a miracle in the great city, and who now clung desperately to each other, as if already they felt a chilly solitude settling in. A divorced actor and a lonely woman, both adrift in New York, meet by chance in an all-night diner. It is the start of something, though neither is sure what. As they move through neon-lit streets, bars, rented rooms and cheap motels, these two lost souls struggle to understand what it is that has brought them, in spite of themselves, inexorably together. 'Simenon casts his characteristic spell from the opening lines. There is an evanescent, hallucinatory, almost dreamlike quality throughout' Daily Telegraph 'Three Bedrooms in Manhattan is about how we resist love, how we get dragged into it, spat out, dragged back in against our will' Los Angeles Times

'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

Introducing Little Clothbound Classics: irresistible, mini editions of short stories, novellas and essays from the world's greatest writers, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith Celebrating the range and diversity of Penguin Classics, they take us from snowy Japan to springtime Vienna, from haunted New England to a sun-drenched Mediterranean island, and from a game of chess on the ocean to a love story on the moon. Beautifully designed and printed, these collectible editions are bound in colourful, tactile cloth and stamped with foil. Georges Simenon's brilliant pipe-smoking detective, Jules Maigret, is one of the most beloved literary creations of the twentieth century. In this adventure, an officer from Scotland Yard is studying Maigret's methods when a call from an island off the Cote d'Azure sends the two men off to an isolated community to investigate its eccentric inhabitants.

'The father of contemporary European detective fiction' Ann Cleeves 'He hadn't seen her arrive. She had stopped on the pavement a few steps away from him and was peering into the courtyard of the Police Judiciaire, where the small staff cars were parked. She ventured as far as the entrance, looked the officer up and down, then turned round and walked away towards the Pont-Neuf' When an old lady tells Maigret someone has been moving things in her apartment, she is dismissed as a fantasist - until a schocking event proves otherwise. 'One of the greatest writers of the twentieth century' Guardian

'The father of contemporary European detective fiction' Ann Cleeves '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. This novel has been published in a previous translation as Maigret Takes the Waters. 'His artistry is supreme' John Banville 'One of the greatest writers of the twentieth century' Guardian

'Read him at your peril, avoid him at your loss' Sunday Times Captain Lannec has finally managed to buy his own ship with the financial help of his in-laws, the Pitards - and they've never let him forget it. When his temperamental wife Mathilde insists on coming along on the ship's first voyage, Lannec becomes increasingly unnerved by her presence, especially when he receives an anonymous note saying he won't make it back to port. As they hit a storm in the Atlantic, jealousy, spite, snobbery and suspicion are churned up in the boat's stiflingly close quarters... First published in 1935, The Pitards was one of the first novels Simenon wrote when he shelved his famous Maigret series in order to strike out in a new direction and make a name for himself as a literary writer. This gripping evocation of life at sea revolves around class and the tense unravelling of relationships, powerful themes that Simenon would return to throughout his writing career.

'Feels incredibly modern... it is brutal, frank about sex and violence, and will make your flesh creep' Ian Rankin A brilliant new translation of Simenon's critically acclaimed masterpiece. 'And always the dirty snow, the heaps of snow that look rotten, with black patches and embedded garbage ... unable to cover the filth.' Nineteen-year-old Frank - thug, thief, son of a brothel owner - gets by surprisingly well despite living in a city under military occupation, but a warm house and a full stomach are not enough to make him feel truly alive in such a climate of deceit and betrayal. During a bleak, unending winter, he embarks on a string of violent and sordid crimes that set him on a path from which he can never return. Georges Simenon's matchless novel is a brutal, compelling portrayal of a world without pity; a devastating journey through a psychological no-man's land. 'Among the best novels of the twentieth century' New Yorker 'An astonishing work' John Banville 'So noir it makes Raymond Chandler look beige' Independent

A new translation of George Simenon's taut, devastating psychological novel set in American suburbia. The inspiration for the new play by award-winning playwright David Hare. 'I had begun, God knows why, tearing a corner off of everyday truth, begun seeing myself in another kind of mirror, and now the whole of the old, more or less comfortable truth was falling to pieces' Confident and successful, New York advertising executive Ray Sanders takes what he wants from life. When he goes missing in a snow storm in Connecticut one evening, his closest friend begins to reassess his loyalties, gambling Ray's fate and his own future. 'The romans durs are extraordinary: tough, bleak, offhandedly violent, suffused with guilt and bitterness, redolent of place . . . utterly unsentimental, frightening in the pitilessness of their gaze, yet wonderfully entertaining' 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 'A supreme writer . . . unforgettable vividness' Independen

'The father of contemporary European detective fiction' Ann Cleeves 'You see, I mainly work at night. I've ended up getting to know everybody. They're used to me in Pigalle, I exchange a few words with this person or that person. I go into the bars and cabarets where they give me a quarter bottle of Vichy without waiting for me to order anything.' An anonymous tip-off regarding the death of a restaurant owner sends Maigret into the world of Parisian nightlife, a notorious criminal gang and a man known as 'the Flea'. This novel has been pubished in a previous translation as Maigret and the Flea. 'One of the greatest writers of the twentieth century' Guardian

'The father of contemporary European detective fiction' Ann Cleeves Maigret savoured the sensations of his youth again: the cold, stinging eyes, frozen fingertips, an aftertaste of coffee. Then, stepping inside the church, a blast of heat, soft light; the smell of candles and incense. The last time Maigret went home to the village of his birth was for his father's funeral. Now an anonymous note predicting a crime during All Souls' Day mass draws him back there, where troubling memories resurface and hidden vices are revealed. Penguin is publishing the entire series of Maigret novels in new translations. This novel has been published in a previous translation as Maigret Goes Home. 'Compelling, remorseless, brilliant' John Gray '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

'Compelling, remorseless, brilliant' John Gray When a tramp is recovered from the Seine, after being badly beaten, Maigret must delve into the man's personal circumstances to figure out just who wanted to kill him. This novel has been published in previous translations as Maigret and the Dosser and Maigret and the Bum. '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

'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

'The father of contemporary European detective fiction' Ann Cleeves Poor Cecile! And yet she was still young. Maigret had seen her papers: barely twenty-eight 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! In the dreary suburbs of Paris, the merciless greed of a seemingly respectable woman is unearthed by her long suffering niece, and Maigret discovers the far-reaching consequences of their actions. 'Compelling, remorseless, brilliant' John Gray 'A supreme writer . . . unforgettable vividness' Independent

'Compelling, remorseless, brilliant' John Gray 'She came forward, the outlines of her figure blurred in the half-light. She came forward like a film star, or rather like the ideal woman in an adolescent's dream. 'I gather you wish to talk to me, Inspector . . . but first of all please sit down . . .' Her accent was more pronounced than Carl's. Her voice sang, dropping on the last syllable of the longer words.' Maigret has been interrogating Carl Andersen for seventeen hours without a confession. He's either innocent or a very good liar. So why was the body of a diamond merchant found at his isolated mansion? Why is his sister always shut away in her room? And why does everyone at Three Widows Crossroads have something to hide? This novel has been published in previous translations as Maigret at the Crossroads and The Crossroad Murders. '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