The Judge’s House (Inspector Maigret)

＂The most extraordinary fictive shaper in our time.＂ --George Steiner

Exiled to a sleepy town in western France, Maigret is relieved when he has to handle a challenging case. There’s been a murder in a mussel farming village and its most respected resident, the former judge Monsieur Forlacroix, has tried to dispose of the body in the river. But why will no one admit to knowing the dead man? And what connects him to Forlacroix’s pianist daughter, Lise, who is kept locked in her bedroom? With studied patience and an eye for subliminal clues, Maigret teases out the dark secrets that everyone in this insular community, it seems, has a motive to protect. A heady and atmospheric page-turner, The Judge’s House is Georges Simenon at his suspenseful best.

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.

Howard Curtis lives in Norwich, England, and has translated more than a hundred books from the French, Italian, and Spanish.