Sorted on book title (not in series order)
Eddie, Gino, and Tony Rico were born in Brooklyn. Under the guise of ordinary men, they are part of an "organization" for which the elder "protects" Florida merchants, while the two younger ones participate in the settling of scores. When Tony, wanted by the police, disappears, the...Read more
What was the woman doing here? Why was her body found in a stable, wearing pearl earrings, a stylish bracelet and white buckskin shoes?
She must have been alive when she got there because the crime had been committed after ten in the evening. But how? And why? No one had heard a...Read more
The second in the Maigret series (although there's some suggestion it could be the fourth although I've done zero fact checking one way or the other), this one really re-affirmed my decision to go right back to the start, and work my way through the audio versions of this series (the anti-...Read more
A collaboration between William Heinemann, Secker & Warburg and Octopus Books to create a series of omnibus editions of certain authors which would be available at low prices. The works of Simenon, and especially with an emphasis on the Maigret stories, were an obvious choice for...Read more
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...Read more
Book 4 in the Maigret series, which I'm wandering back through via the medium of audio books. Which as we all know is successful based hugely on the narrator. In this case Gareth Armstrong does a great job, with a voice that's laid back enough to make it pleasant listening, but not so much...Read more
In the third Maigret mystery, the circumstances of Monsieur Gallet's death all seem fake: the name he was traveling under, his presumed profession, and, more worryingly, his family's grief. Their haughtiness seems to hide ambiguous feelings about the hapless man. Soon Maigret discovers the...Read more
One of my current audio quests is to go back to the beginning of the Inspector Maigret series and work my way through. THE LATE MONSIEUR GALLET is the third book in the series, so it was particularly interesting to note how firmly the characteristics of Maigret are established already. His...Read more
Maigret is a few years short of his retirement and has just refused promotion to the post of Head of the Police Judiciare, preferring the human contact he enjoys as Head of the Criminal Division. His wish is granted when Madam Nathalie Sabin-Levesque, an elegant but highly nervous lwoman,...Read more
A Maigret Omnibus comprising Maigret Right and Wrong (Maigret in Montmartre & Maigret's Mistake); Maigret has Scruples; Maigret and the Reluctant Witnesses; Maigret Goes to SchoolRead more
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.Read more
There is an awful lot to like about Maigret in AND THE IDLE BURGLAR. Despite dreadful facial injuries, Maigret knows the identity of this man instantly from a single tattoo on his body. The victim, Cuendet, is well known to him. He's a career burglar - a Swiss man, who started out very...Read more
The richest wine merchant in Paris is found dead -- shot in front of an elegant house where discreet clients are in the habit of renting rooms for discreet purposes. Everything seems to point to a crime sparked by jealousy. But Maigret is surprised to find a curious absence of shock or...Read more
When prosperous wine merchant Oscar Chabut is shot dead outside a fashionable bordello he has just been visiting with his mistress and secretary, Maigret finds that extra-marital behaviour in Chabut's social group is pretty much the norm. Chabut seems to regard sexual conquest as a means of...Read more
Taking a bit of a wander back through some of the classic crime fiction authors, I've been reading a few Simenon's. In Maigret's Boyhood Friend, Inspector Maigret receives a visit from his old school friend Leon Florentin. Florentin had been the class clown, and despite only seeing him once...Read more
When a long lost friend pays a visit to Maigret's office, he is shocked to learn that the man's roommate has been murdered. With the help of his old friend, Maigret delves into the life of the victim and finds a complex web of relationships that leads him to the culprit.Read more
Maigret sets out to prove the innocence of a man condemned to death for a brutal murder. As his audacious plan to uncover the truth unfolds, he encounters rich American expatriates, some truly dangerous characters, and their hidden motives.Read more
Book 5 in the Maigret series, and part of a now stalled attempt to go right back through them all via audio books. Stalled not because of this particular entry, which was a much more interesting read than a couple of the earlier books. Stalled mostly because of the weight of the queues...Read more
Inspector Pyke of Scotland Yard is staying with Maigret to observe his methods, Maigret receives word of a murder in the Midi on the island of Porquerolles. The victim is Marcellin, a man who claims to have been Maigret’s friend but was actually a criminal whose girlfriend, a sex worker,...Read more
The first novel in the famous Inspector Maigret series.
What Maigret sought, and what he waited and watched out for, was the crack in the wall. In other words, the instant when the human being comes out from behind the opponent.
Who is Pietr the Latvian? Is he a...Read more
PIETR THE LATVIAN commences the latest entire series audio quest, having now finished the much loved Discworld novels. I'm also aware I've got a few other series underway in this quest - mostly they've lapsed because I'm easily distracted, or because they've failed to hold interest. This...Read more
There was an exaggerated humility about her. Her cowed eyes, her way of gliding noiselessly about without bumping into things, of quivering nervously at the slightest word, were the very image of a scullery maid accustomed to hardship. And yet he sensed, beneath that image, glints of...Read more
The world is a pretty awful place at the moment and there's no way I will stomach listening to a book that casually talks about animal cruelty. So this was a DNF with extreme nope.Read more