The Madman of Bergerac (Inspector Maigret)

A man on the run, a madman on the loose terrorizing the town, and Maigret on the case--a thrilling, nerve-racking mystery from Georges Simenon.

The Madman of Bergerac finds Maigret on the train to Bordeaux trying to sleep, to no avail. A man in the bunk above is tossing and turning, perhaps even crying. Suddenly, the passenger jumps up, then jumps off the moving train. Maigret instinctively follows suit but is struck down, shot in the shoulder. When he reawakens, he’s hospitalized and surrounded by officials--who think he is the local murderer. Though the confusion is soon cleared up, Maigret’s interest is piqued by the stories of the madman who has been killing women on the side of the road, first strangling his victims, then stabbing them with a giant needle. It’s a case that comes about by pure chance, and there’s nothing to do but recover, bedridden. So using his indefatigable power of deduction, along with his penchant for mischievous schemes, the inspector resolves to figure out just what the situation is in Bergerac.

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.

Ros Schwartz is an award-winning translator of French literature. Acclaimed for her new version of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince (published in 2010), she has over 100 fiction and nonfiction titles to her name, including multiple by Georges Simenon. In 2009, the French government named her a Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters, and in 2017 she was awarded the John Sykes Memorial Prize for Excellence by the Institute of Translation and Interpreting.