The Yellow Dog (Inspector Maigret) - by Georges Simenon (Paperback)

About the Book

"Originally published in French in 1931 by Fayard, Belgium, as Le chien jaune. English translation originally published in the United States in 1987 by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich as Maigret and the Yellow Dog. Published under the present title, with minor revisions, in 2003 by Penguin Books, Great Britain. This translation, with further revisions, published in 2013 by Penguin Books, Great Britain"--Title page verso.

Book Synopsis

An eerie mystery in which a local wine dealer is shot and a strange yellow dog starts to circle the town--Inspector Maigret must navigate small-town dynamics to find the elusive culprit.

Late at night in a small seaside town, not a single light is on, and everyone is asleep. Or almost everyone: a man, drunk, departs for home after another evening at a hotel bar, where he and a few others regularly gather. Suddenly, he collapses--struck by a gunshot. The victim turns out to be the town's most successful wine dealer, and the event soon leads to a series of other curiosities: poisoned drinks at the bar, another man found missing, and a dirty yellow dog haunting the neighborhood, accompanied by large, unfamiliar boot tracks. Detective Chief Inspector Maigret, who happens to be nearby heading up a mobile unit, arrives swiftly to resolve the growing confusion. Though a chill sets over town, with townspeople remaining tight-lipped, Maigret's pursuit of the truth in Georges Simenon's The Yellow Dog makes for a thrilling, breathless adventure.

About the Author

Georges Simenon (1903-1989) was born in Liège, Belgium. An intrepid traveler with a profound interest in people, Simenon strove on and off the page to understand--and not to judge--the human condition in all its shades. His books 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.

Linda Asher is a former fiction editor at The New Yorker and the award-winning translator of works by Milan Kundera and Victor Hugo, among other celebrated authors.