Joseph Delaney used to be an English teacher, before becoming the best-selling author of the Spook's series, which has been published in 30 countries and sold over 4.5 million copies worldwide. The first book, The Spook's Apprentice, was adapted into a major motion picture starring Jeff Bridges and Julianne Moore.

Joseph Delaney

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Georges Simenon

Maigret and fellow inspector Lognon clash in their investigations into the murder of an unknown young woman in Paris. Maigret endeavours to piece together the story of the girl and in doing so uncovers details about her past and her character that lead him to the truth behind her tragic demise.

Maigret and the Dead Girl

Inspector Maigret

'The father of contemporary European detective fiction' Ann Cleeves 
 
'Maigret looked at him in some confusion, wondering if he waas dealing with a skilful actor or, on the contrary, with a sickly little man who found consolation in a subtle sense of humour.' 
 
A series of anonymous letters lead Maigret into the wealthy household of an eminent laywer and a curious game of cat and mouse with Paris high society. 
 
'His artistry is supreme' John Banville 
 
'One of the greatest writers of the twentieth century' Guardian

Maigret Hesitates

‘Acute psychological insight and a distinctive, spare, atmospheric style … Simenon ought to be spoken of in the same breath as Camus, Beckett and Kafka’ Independent on Sunday 
 
 In this classic novel, a woman’s fears for her safety lead Inspector Maigret to a Paris suburb where he uncovers appalling family secrets 
 ‘Barely twenty-eight years old. But it would be difficult to look more like an old maid, to move less gracefully…those black dresses…that ridiculous green hat!’ 
 
 For six months the dowdy Cécile has been coming to the police station, desperate to convince them that someone has been breaking into her aunt’s apartment. No one takes her seriously – until Maigret unearths a story of merciless, deep-rooted greed. 
 'One of the greatest writers of the twentieth century' Guardian 
 ‘Gem-hard soul-probes . . . not just the world's bestselling detective series, but an imperishable literary legend’ Boyd Tonkin, The Times

Cécile is Dead

‘Acute psychological insight and a distinctive, spare, atmospheric style … Simenon ought to be spoken of in the same breath as Camus, Beckett and Kafka’ Independent on Sunday 
 Faced with a house of tight-lipped witnesses to a murder, Simenon's legendary Inspector Maigret must change his methods to uncover the truth 
 
 ‘The family and the house had turned in on themselves, acquiring a hostile face in the process’ 
 
 The once-wealthy Lachaume family closes ranks when one of their own is shot dead, claiming to have heard and seen nothing of the murder. This leaves Maigret – along with a troublesome new magistrate who has waded into the case – to pick his way through their shameful secrets. 
 
 'One of the greatest writers of the twentieth century' Guardian 
 ‘Gem-hard soul-probes . . . not just the world's bestselling detective series, but an imperishable literary legend’ Boyd Tonkin, The Times

Maigret and the Reluctant Witnesses

When a man's headless body is pulled from the Canal Saint Martin, Maigret and his colleagues are puzzled. In a chance encounter at a local cafe Maigret uncovers the truth behind this disturbing murder in an intriguing story of an estranged family, adulterous affairs and a secret inheritance

Maigret and the Headless Corpse

‘Acute psychological insight and a distinctive, spare, atmospheric style … Simenon ought to be spoken of in the same breath as Camus, Beckett and Kafka’ Independent on Sunday 
 The seemingly open and shut case of the murdered gambler is anything but simple in this classic novel featuring the legendary Inspector Maigret 
 
 ‘Maigret had often been called on to deal with individuals of this sort, who were equally at home in London, New York and Rome, who took planes the way other people took the Metro’ 
 
 A professional gambler, Felix Nahour, has been shot dead in his elegant Parisian home, and his enigmatic wife seems the most likely culprit. All signs point to her guilt, but Inspector Maigret suspects this notorious case is far more complicated than it appears. 
 
 'One of the greatest writers of the twentieth century' Guardian 
 ‘Gem-hard soul-probes . . . not just the world's bestselling detective series, but an imperishable literary legend’ Boyd Tonkin, The Times

Maigret and the Nahour Case

There was a strong mistral blowing. I don't know what the mistral was doing there, but from what I've understood it has a certain importance. It's because of the mistral, in particular, that Marcellin, rather than going to sleep on his boat as he usually does, headed for a shack that stands near the harbour, where the fishermen store their nets.

My Friend Maigret

The profession he had always yearned for did not actually exist . . . he imagined a very clever, above all very understanding man, a cross between a doctor and a priest, a man capable of understanding another's destiny at first glance. 
 
Maigret's first, and unofficial, investigation takes him into the hears of a bourgeois Paris household and a police cover-up.

Maigret's First Case

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 which he found mind-boggling.

The Shadow Puppet

Instead of the detail filling itself in and becoming clearer, it seemed to escape him. The face of the man in the ill-fitting coat just misted up so that it hardly looked human. In theory this mental portrait was good enough, but now it was replaced by fleeting images which should have added up to one and the same man but which refused to get themselves into focus. 
 
The circumstances of Monsieur Gallet's death all seem fake: the name the deceased was travelling under and his presumed profession, and more worryingly, his family's grief. Their haughtiness seems to hide ambiguous feelings about the hapless man. In this haunting story, Maigret discovers the appalling truth and the real crime hidden behind the surface of lies.

The Late Monsieur Gallet

In his mind's eye he would see that slim figure in the striking clothes, those wide eyes the colour of forget-me-not, the pert nose and especially the hat, that giddy, crimson bonnet perched on the top of her head with a bronze-green feather shaped like a blade stuck in it . . . Félicie had given him more trouble than all the 'hard' men who had been put behind bars.

Félicie

Half an hour later, he was in Cannes ... White everywhere! Huge white hotels, white shops, white trousers and dresses, white sails out at sea. 
It was as if life were no more than a pantomime fairy-tale, a white and blue fairy-tale. 
 
Dazzled at first by the glamour of sunny Antibes, Maigret soon finds himself immersed in the less salubrious side of the Riviera when he traces the steps of a shabby former spy who is fond of pretty women and dive bars.

Liberty Bar

'Just take a look,' Duclos said in an undertone, pointing to the scene all round them, the picture-book town, with everything in its place, like ornaments on the mantlepiece of a careful housewife . . . 'Everyone here earns his living. Everyone's more or less content. And above all, everyone keeps his instincts under control, because that's the rule here, and a necessity if people want to live in society' 
 
When a French professor visiting the quiet, Dutch coastal town of Delfzjil is accused of murder, Maigret is sent to investigate. The community seem happy to blame an unknown outsider, but there are people much closer to home who seem to know much more than they're letting on: Beetje, the dissatisfied daughter of a local farmer, Any van Elst, sister-in-law of the deceased and, of course a notorious local crook.

A Crime in Holland

A retired manufacturer has been shot dead by his own pistol, last seen alive by his son-in-law. In this seemingly motiveless murder, Inspector Maigret must rely on his famous intuition to discover the truth.

Maigret and the Good People of Montparnasse

A vast emptiness. The room, in the darkness, seemed big as a cathedral. Warm currents of air still drifted from the radiators. 
Delfosse struck a match. They paused for a moment to take a breath and get their bearings. And suddenly the match dropped. A piercing shriek came from Delfosse . . . Chabot saw something too. 
 
Maigret observes from a distance as two boys are accused of killing a rich foreigner in Liège. Their loyalty, which binds them together through their adventures in the seedier side of the city, is put to the test and seemingly irrelevant social differences threaten their friendship.

The Dancer at the Gai-Moulin

When a long lost friend pays a visit to Maigret's office, he is shocked to learn that the man's roommate has been murdered. With the help of his old friend, Maigret delves into the life of the victim and finds a complex web of relationships that leads him to the culprit.

Maigret's Childhood Friend

He recalled his traveling companion's agitated sleep - was it really sleep - his sighs, and his sobbing. Then two dangling legs in their patent leather boots and hand-knitted socks . . . A lacklustre face. Glazed eyes. And Maigret was not surprised to see a grey beard eating into his cheeks.

The Madman of Bergerac

Were these yellow shoes part of the reason Maigret was so interested in this man? He would never admit it, but for years he too had longed to wear olive-green shoes. They were fashionable at the time, along with those very short beige raincoats.

Maigret and the Man on the Bench

When an elegant but nervous woman appears in Inspector Maigret's office and reports her rich and successful husband missing, Maigret and Lapointe find themselves on the trail of a man leading a double life: a prominent Parisian solicitor by day, a playboy known as "Monsieur Charles" by night.

Maigret and Monsieur Charles

In everyone's eyes, even the old ladies hiding behind their quivering curtains, even the kids just now who had turned to stare after they had passed him, he was the intruder, the undesirable. No, worse, he was fundamentally untrustworthy, some stranger who had just turned up from who knew where to do who knew what.

Inspector Cadaver

When multi-millionaire David Ward is found dead in the same hotel as a countess who attempted suicide only hours earlier, Maigret presumes that the two cases are connected. When the countess flees Paris after the murder Maigret follows her to Nice and then to Switzerland to uncover the truth.

Maigret Travels

Cars drove past along with the trucks and trams, but by now Maigret had realised that they were not important. Whatever roared by like this along the road was not part of the landscape. ... What really counted was the lock, the hooting of the tugs, the stone crusher, the barges and the cranes, the two pilots' bars and especially the tall house where he could make out Ducrau's red chair framed by a window. 
 
Maigret is drawn into the orbit of the self-made, mercurial Ducrau, as the latter's past catches up with him.

Lock No. 1

When a socially isolated vagrant is found dead in the condemned building where he had been sleeping in Les Halles, Paris, Maigret must delve into the victim's mysterious past to discover who could have killed him.

Maigret and the Loner

When Maigret's holiday plans go awry he and his wife spend their vacation in Paris, on the condition that he has nothing to do with work. However a case involving the death of a doctor's wife intrigues Maigret and he assiduously follows its development in the papers. He cannot resist playing a few tricks on his colleague Janvier who is running the case and along the way Maigret uncovers something that is crucial to the murderer's discovery...

Maigret Enjoys Himself

Mechanically, he had put his pince-nez down on the blotter and looked at it there with his large, short-sighted eyes. It is at that moment that the strange thing happens. One of the lenses, acting as a mirror, reflected the criss-cross, hatched ink marks which had dried on the blotter and he could just make out a couple of words.

Signed, Picpus

'Compelling, remorseless, brilliant' John Gray 
 
What was it about him that had struck Maigret so forcefully? . . . Little John had cold eyes! . . . Four or five times in his life, he had met people with cold eyes, those eyes that can stare at you without establishing any human contact. 
 
Persuaded to sail to New York by a fearful young law student, Maigret finds himself drawn into the city's underworld, and a wealthy businessman's closely guarded past. 
 
'One of the greatest writers of the twentieth century . . . Simenon was unequalled at making us look inside, though the ability was masked by his brilliance at absorbing us obsessively in his stories' Guardian

Maigret in New York

Maigret receives an anonymous phone call concerning the brutal murder of a woman and young child. The tip off concerns the woman's nephew, a mild-mannered man by the name of Gaston Meurant. Maigret remains unconvinced of the man's guilt and at his trial exposes some shocking truths about Meurant's private life that may prove his innocence.

Maigret in Court

'There was an exaggerated humility about her. And yet he sensed, beneath that image, glints of pride held firmly in check. She was anaemic. Her flat chest was not formed to rouse desire. Nevertheless, she was strangely appealing, perhaps because she seemed troubled, despondent, sickly.' 
 
In the coastal town of Concarneau, a local wine merchant is shot. Maigret soon realizes that Emma, a downtrodden waitress, is hiding something and that the mysterious yellow dog lurking around town may be the key to solving this crime.

The Yellow Dog

The moon must have risen above the mist, which was now faintly incandescent, and, when Arlette stopped, he saw the pale shape of her face, with the wide line of her mouth . . .Then, still standing there in front of him, she said in a changed voice, which was painful to hear: 'And . . . don't you want to take advantage of me, like the others?'

Maigret and the Old Lady

A short, sprightly man appeared in the doorway, looked left and right, and went back into the passage. A moment later, the improbable happened. The little man reappeared, bent over, clinging to a long mass that he now started dragging through the mud. 
 
It must have been heavy. After four metres, he stopped to catch his breath. The front door of the house had been left open. The sea was still twenty or thirty metres away.

The Judge's House

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