Cécile Is Dead (Inspector Maigret)

＂I’ve read a lot of Simenon, who’s a favorite writer of mine.＂ --Sigrid Nunez

In a run-down Paris suburb, housebound widow Juliette Boynet is strangled. For Inspector Maigret, this murder hits home more than most: he’s well acquainted with Juliette’s live-in carer, her selfless niece Cécile. For months, the frightened young woman has complained of an unseen nocturnal intruder. And less than twenty-four hours after her aunt’s murder, Cécile is also found dead. She didn’t have an overactive imagination after all, Maigret reflects guiltily. Focusing his investigation on Cécile and Juliette’s apartment building, with its eccentric concierge and motley assortment of tenants, Maigret ponders how the two murders are linked. Does the wealthy Juliette’s criminal activity hold the answer? Did an heir kill for an inheritance? Or is the truth stranger than even Maigret can foresee? With deft care, Maigret untwists an astonishing tale of greed and treachery in Cécile Is Dead.

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.

Anthea Bell (1936-2018) was a translator of literary works from French, German, and Danish. These include The Castle by Franz Kafka, Austerlitz by W. G. Sebald, and the French Asterix comics (with cotranslator Derek Hockridge). She was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire.