The New Investigations of Inspector Maigret

A superior stylist . . . photographic . . . Simenon's subject is how people who are pushed to the edge push themselves over it; the force of the sleuthing is that of psychoanalysis, not police interrogation.

Adam Gopnik, New Yorker

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, The Times

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

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

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

A gem of a read. It's like discovering a buried treasure trove of words, characters and dialogue which both entertain and make you think

Jane Corry, author of We All Have Our Secrets