> Skip to content
[]
  • Published: 13 January 2014
  • ISBN: 9780141392738
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 176
  • RRP: $26.00

Pietr the Latvian

Inspector Maigret #1




A gripping new translation by David Bellos of the first novel which appeared in the famous Maigret series, revealing Simenon as a dark, visceral and surprising writer

'What he sought, 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 gentleman thief? A Russian drinking absinthe in a grimy bar? A married Norwegian sea captain? A twisted corpse in a train toilet? Or is he all of these men? In Simenon's first novel featuring Maigret, the laconic detective is taken from grimy dive bars to luxury hotels as he solves this strange enigma.

  • Published: 13 January 2014
  • ISBN: 9780141392738
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 176
  • RRP: $26.00

About the author

Georges Simenon

Georges Simenon was born in Liège, Belgium in 1903. An intrepid traveller with a profound interest in people, Simenon strove on and off the page to understand, rather than to judge, the human condition in all its shades. His novels 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. He died in 1989 in Lausanne, Switzerland, where he had lived for the latter part of his life.

Also by Georges Simenon

See all

Praise for Pietr the Latvian

Gem-hard soul-probes . . . not just the world's bestselling detective series, but an imperishable literary legend . . . he exposes secrets and crimes not by forensic wizardry, but by the melded powers of therapist, philosopher and confessor

Boyd Tonkin, Times

Strangely comforting . . . so many lovely bistros from the Paris of mid-20th C. The corpses are incidental, it's the food that counts.

Margaret Atwood, Margaret Atwood

One of the greatest writers of the 20th century . . . no other writer can set up a scene as sharply and with such economy as Simenon does . . . the conjuring of a world, a place, a time, a set of characters - above all, an atmosphere.

John Banville, Financial Times

Simenon's supreme virtue as a novelist, to burrow beneath the surface of his characters' behaviour; to empathise . . . it is this unfailing humanity that makes the Maigret books truly worth reading.

Graeme Macrae Burnet, Guardian

Gripping . . . richly rewarding . . . You'll quickly find yourself obsessing about his life as you tackle each mystery in turn

Stig Abell, The Sunday Times