The Shadow Puppet (Inspector Maigret)

The Penguin relaunch of Georges Simenon’s incomparable books continues with four new Inspector Maigret novels

On a corner of the desk, the police gazette lay open, showing twenty or so photographs of wanted individuals. Most of them faces of thugs.  Heads that bore the scars of degeneracy . . . And the warning, in red, Dangerous. Is still armed. A fellow who would not sell himself cheaply.

Well! Maigret would have preferred that to all this syrupy greyness, to these family sagas, to this still inexplicable murder he found mind-boggling.

Called to the famous Place de Vosges in the heart of Paris, Inspector Maigret finds the body of a man shot dead, slumped in front of a ransacked safe.  Confronted with a number of suspects, including a vengeful ex-wife and a son deep in debt, Maigret gets down to the business of discovering who allowed their greed to get the best of them.

Written in the dark, grimly comic prose that Simenon has become renowned for, A Crime In Holland will delight lifelong fans and new readers alike.