The Flemish House - (Inspector Maigret) by Georges Simenon (Paperback)

About the Book

Firs published in the French as Chez les Flamards by Fayard 1932.

Book Synopsis

"A writer as comfortable with reality as with fiction, with passion as with reason." --John Le Carré

A chilling Inspector Maigret mystery set on the Belgian border

"She wasn't an ordinary supplicant. She didn't lower her eyes. There was nothing humble about her bearing. She spoke frankly, looking straight ahead, as if to claim what was rightfully hers. 'If you don't agree to look at our case, my parents and I will be lost, and it will be the most hateful legal error...'"

Maigret is asked to the windswept, rainy border town of Givet by a young woman desperate to clear her family of murder. But their well-kept shop, the sleepy community and its raging river all hide their own mysteries.

Review Quotes

Praise for Georges Simenon:

"One of the greatest writers of the twentieth century . . . Simenon was unequaled at making us look inside, though the ability was masked by his brilliance at absorbing us obsessively in his stories." --The Guardian

"These Maigret books are as timeless as Paris itself." --The Washington Post

"The matchless French crime novelist." --Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker

"Maigret ranks with Holmes and Poirot in the pantheon of fictional detective immortals." --People

"I love reading Simenon. He makes me think of Chekhov." --William Faulkner

"An astute observer of human nature, writing in a spare and vivid style." --Amor Towles

"I never read contemporary fiction-with one exception: the works of Simenon." --T.S. Eliot

"A writer as comfortable with reality as with fiction, with passion as with reason." --John Le Carré

"One of the most important writers of our century." --Gabriel García Márquez

"A favorite writer of mine." --Sigrid Nunez

"A great writer of detail, of atmosphere." --Leïla Slimani

"Feels incredibly modern...A great writer." --Ian Rankin

"The greatest of all, the most genuine novelist we have had in literature." --André Gide

"A supreme writer . . . Unforgettable vividness." --The Independent (London)

"Superb . . . The most addictive of writers . . . A unique teller of tales." --The Observer (London)

"Compelling, remorseless, brilliant." --John Gray

"A truly wonderful writer . . . Marvelously readable--lucid, simple, absolutely in tune with the world he creates." --Muriel Spark

"A novelist who entered his fictional world as if he were a part of it." --Peter Ackroyd

"Extraordinary masterpieces of the twentieth century." --John Banville

"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" ―Times (London)

"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

"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." ―Financial Times

"Gripping . . . richly rewarding . . . You'll quickly find yourself obsessing about his life as you tackle each mystery in turn." ―Stig Abell, The Sunday Times (London)

About the Author

Georges Simenon (1903-1989) was born in Liège, Belgium. Best known in Britain as the author of the Maigret books, his prolific output of more than four hundred novels and short stories have made him a household name in continental Europe.

Shaun Whiteside is a translator of French, Dutch, German, and Italian literature. He has translated many novels, including Manituana and Altai by Wu Ming, The Weekend by Bernhard Schlink, Serotonin by Michel Houellebecq, and Magdalene the Sinner by Lilian Faschinger, which won him the Schlegel-Tieck Prize for German Translation in 1997.