Signed, Picpus

Maigret dismantles an intricate network of lies stretching from Paris to Nice in book twenty-three of the new Penguin Maigret series. 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. Penguin is publishing the entire series of Maigret novels in new translations. This novel has been published in previous translations as To Any Lengths and Maigret and the Fortuneteller. "Compelling, remorseless, brilliant." (John Gray). "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). "A supreme writer...unforgettable vividness." (Independent). Georges Simenon was born in Liege, Belgium, in 1903. Best known in Britain as the author of the Maigret books, his prolific output of over 400 novels and short stories have made him a household name in continental Europe. He died in 1989 in Lausanne, Switzerland, where he had lived for the latter part of his life.