Penguin The Hand Simenon Georges

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

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

A small, thin man, rather dull to look at, neither young nor old, exuding the stale smell of a bachelor who does not look after himself. He pulls his fingers and cracks his knuckles and tells his tale the way a schoolboy recites his lesson • A mysterious note predicting the murder of a fortune-teller; a confused old man locked in a Paris apartment; a financier who goes fishing; a South American heiress ... Maigret must make his way through a frustrating maze of clues, suspects and motives to find out what connects them • Penguin is publishing the entire series of Maigret novels in new translations. This novel has been published in previous translations as To Any Lengths and Maigret and the Fortuneteller

Eyes half-closed, head tilted against the back of his seat, he seemed not to be thinking, as the plane flew over a thick carpet of bright clouds. In reality, he was making an effort to bring names and shadowy figures to life, names and figures that even this morning had been as unknown to him as the inhabitants of another planet • The attempted suicide of a countess and the death of a billionaire in the same luxury Paris hotel send Maigret to the Riviera and then to Switzerland, as he searches for the truth amid the glittering world of the super-rich • This novel has been published in a previous translation as Maigret and the Millionaires

It had a smell of holidays. The previous evening, in Cannes harbour, with the setting sun, had also had the smell of holidays, especially the Ardena, whose owner swaggered in front of two girls with gorgeous figures • Dazzled at first by the glamour of sunny Antibes, Maigret soon finds himself immersed in the less salubrious side of the Riviera as he retraces the final steps of a local eccentric

'Maigret looked at him in some confusion, wondering if he waas 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 lead Maigret into the wealthy household of an eminent laywer and a curious game of cat and mouse with Paris high society

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

It wasn't a traditional painter's smock that Madam Jonker was wearing. It was more a Dominican's monk's habit, the fabric as thick and soft as a bathrobe...She was holding a palette in her left hand, a brush in her right, and her black eyes lighted on Maigret with curiosity • During an undercover case Inspector Lognon is shot in a room he was sharing with a beautiful woman who has since disappeared. Inspector Maigret retraces Lognon's secretive last few days and is drawn into the darker side of the art world • Penguin is publishing the entire series of Maigret novels in new translations. This novel has been published in a previous translation as Maigret and the Apparition

'Try to imagine a guest, a wealthy woman, staying at the Majestic with her husband, her son, a nurse and a governess . . . In a suite that costs more than a thousand francs a day . . . At six in the morning, she's strangled, not in her room, but in the basement locker room' • Below stairs at a glamorous hotel on the Champs-Elysees, the workers' lives are worlds away from the luxury enjoyed by the wealthy guests. When their worlds meet, Maigret discovers a tragic story of ambition, blackmail and unrequited love • This novel has been published in a previous translation as Maigret and the Hotel Majestic

'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

'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

'People who've been here a long time have been talking about him. This morning, when I was having my coffee and croissants, it was all they were talking about. The old folks, even the middle-aged people, remember him and can't understand how he could have become a tramp. Apparently he was a good-looking man, tall and strong, who had a good profession and made a very decent living. And yet he vanished overnight without saying a word to anyone.' • The death of a homeless man in a condemned building in Les Halles leads Maigret on the trail of the vagrant's mysterious past, and an event that happened years ago in the close-knit community of Montmartre