Maigret at Picratt's (Inspector Maigret) - by Georges Simenon (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

When a striptease dancer is brutally murdered, Inspector Maigret must haunt Montmartre's sleazy nightlife to find the killer.

At the tiny basement club Picratt's, the striptease dancer Arlette is the star act. When she is brutally murdered, Maigret must join Arlette's twilight world to find her killer. A frustratingly elusive villain with more victims in his sights, the killer soon assumes terrifying proportions--and yet is Maigret overestimating the man's cunning, his talent for stealing through Montmartre like a ghost? And what is his shared history with an alleged countess, who's been selling her jewelry for drug money? Ensnaring the detective in a cat-and-mouse game as exhilarating as it is perilous, Maigret at Picratt's is a tense, unpredictable thriller and a glittering portrait of mid-century Paris after dark.

About the Author

Georges Simenon (1903-1989) was born in Liège, Belgium. An intrepid traveler with a profound interest in people, Simenon strove on and off the page to understand--and not to judge--the human condition in all its shades. His books 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.

William Hobson is a writer and translator and a former contributing editor to Granta magazine. His translations from French and German include the Goncourt Prize winner The Battle by Patrick Rambaud, The Collector of Worlds by Iliya Troyanov, and Being Arab by Samir Kassir, which won the Index on Censorship's Freedom of Expression Award.