Maigret and the Reluctant Witnesses

Author: Georges Simenon
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0525504087
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 169

Book Description
“A writer as comfortable with reality as with fiction, with passion as with reason.” —John Le Carré When the head of a powerful Parisian family business is murdered in his bed, Maigret must pick apart the family's darkest secrets to reveal the truth "The curious thing was that there seemed to be no grief here, only a strange dejection, a kind of uneasy stupor..." Maigret is called to the home of the high-profile Lachaume family where the eldest brother has been found shot dead. But on his arrival, the family closes ranks and claims to have heard and seen nothing at the time of the murder. Maigret must pick his way through the family's web of lies, secrets, and deceit, as well as handle Angelot, a troublesome new breed of magistrate who has waded into the case. And it's the estranged black sheep of the family, Veronique, who may hold the key to it all with her knowledge of the depths to which the family will sink to protect their reputation. Maigret and the Reluctant Witnesses is an engrossing mystery that examines the intricate tangle of artifice that can entrap even the most influential families.

Columbo: Class Struggle on TV Tonight

Author: Lilian Mathieu
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004512446
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 79

Book Description
Lilian Mathieu shows that the TV series Columbo owes its success to its implicit but formidable political dimension, as each episode is a class struggle between a rich, famous, cultured or powerful criminal and a humble and blunderer police officer.

Adventure, Mystery, and Romance

Author: John G. Cawelt
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022614870X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 344

Book Description
In this first general theory for the analysis of popular literary formulas, John G. Cawelti reveals the artistry that underlies the best in formulaic literature. Cawelti discusses such seemingly diverse works as Mario Puzo's The Godfather, Dorothy Sayers's The Nine Tailors, and Owen Wister's The Virginian in the light of his hypotheses about the cultural function of formula literature. He describes the most important artistic characteristics of popular formula stories and the differences between this literature and that commonly labeled "high" or "serious" literature. He also defines the archetypal patterns of adventure, mystery, romance, melodrama, and fantasy, and offers a tentative account of their basis in human psychology.

Hardball

Author: Sara Paretsky
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101133821
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 358

Book Description
Chicago politics—past, present, and future—take center stage in this complex and compelling V.I. Warshawki novel from New York Times bestselling author Sara Peretsky. Tracking down missing persons is part of V.I. Warshawski’s job. But Lamont Gadsden has been missing for more than forty years—last seen heading out into the 1967 blizzard, in the midst of Chicago’s racial unrest. V.I. figured the search would be futile. She didn’t realize it would be lethal...or lead to troubling discoveries about her own family. And when her young cousin Petra disappears, an angry preacher, a jailed gangbanger, and politics from both past and present interconnect—and plunge V.I. into a mystery as unsettling as the ’60s themselves. A New York Times Notable Crime Book of the Year One of NPR’s Top Five Crime Novels of the Year

Investigating Simenon

Author: Russell Campbell
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476648271
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 289

Book Description
For nearly a century, the work of Belgian crime writer and psychological novelist Georges Simenon, creator of Chief Inspector Maigret, has captivated readers worldwide. This investigation situates Simenon's work in its historical context and interprets it as a reaction to shifting gender relations in Western society. Simenon's compelling narratives capture the anxieties of men whose patriarchal position was under threat in an era of insurgent feminist movements. These concerns are also evident in Simenon's pervasive preoccupation with sexuality, as well as his political stance that stems from his petit-bourgeois upbringing. This groundbreaking study includes interwoven commentary on all 191 novels Simenon published under his own name, including several that have never been translated into English, as well as a number of short stories and several pseudonymous works.

The Essential Mystery Lists

Author: Roger M Sobin
Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press Inc
ISBN: 1615952039
Category : Reference
Languages : en
Pages : 591

Book Description
For the first time in one place, Roger M. Sobin has compiled a list of nominees and award winners of virtually every mystery award ever presented. He has also included many of the “best of” lists by more than fifty of the most important contributors to the genre.; Mr. Sobin spent more than two decades gathering the data and lists in this volume, much of that time he used to recheck the accuracy of the material he had collected. Several of the “best of” lists appear here for the first time in book form. Several others have been unavailable for a number of years.; Of special note, are Anthony Boucher’s “Best Picks for the Year.” Boucher, one of the major mystery reviewers of all time, reviewed for The San Francisco Chronicle, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, and The New York Times. From these resources Mr. Sobin created “Boucher’s Best” and “Important Lists to Consider,” lists that provide insight into important writing in the field from 1942 through Boucher’s death in 1968.? This is a great resource for all mystery readers and collectors.; ; Winner of the 2008 Macavity Awards for Best Mystery Nonfiction.

The Accident on the A35

Author: Graeme Macrae Burnet
Publisher: Saraband
ISBN: 1913393577
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 292

Book Description
By the Booker Prize nominated, internationally bestselling author of His Bloody Project: a captivating homage to Georges Simenon, an absorbing character study and a highly original detective story. There does not appear to be anything remarkable about the fatal car crash on the A35. But one question dogs Inspector Georges Gorski: where has the victim, an outwardly austere lawyer, been on the night of his death? The troubled Gorski finds himself drawn into a mystery that takes him behind the respectable veneer of the sleepy French backwater of Saint-Louis. Graeme Macrae Burnet returns with a literary mystery that will beguile fans of His Bloody Project and The Disappearance of Adèle Bedeau. Darkly humorous, subtle and sophisticated, The Accident on the A35 burrows deep into the psyches of its characters and explores the forgotten corners of small-town life.

Maigret's Pickpocket

Author: Georges Simenon
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : France
Languages : en
Pages :

Book Description
A pickpocket helps himself to Maigret's wallet and which then leads him to a complicated case of murder. Police procedural.

Maigret's World

Author: Murielle Wenger
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476629250
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 245

Book Description
Georges Simenon's 75 novels and 28 short stories that feature Chief Inspector Jules Maigret provide us with a great deal of information about the French police detective--but only in small, episodic doses. As readers become acquainted with Maigret one detail at a time, he slowly takes on a flesh-and-bone realism--not merely a character in a story, but someone we would like to meet in real life. This book presents all the canonical facts and details about the detective and his world in one place, presented with tabulations and analyses that enable a better understanding of the works and of Maigret himself.

Maigret, Simenon and France

Author: Bill Alder
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786470542
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 221

Book Description
Georges Simenon (1903-1989) was a phenomenally successful author of crime fiction. His 75 Maigret novels and 28 Maigret short stories were published between 1931 and 1972 to great international acclaim (he is the only non-anglophone crime writer to have achieved such renown). His Maigret stories are regarded by many as having established a new direction in crime fiction, emphasizing social and psychological portraiture rather than focussing on a puzzle to be solved or on "action." This book examines the importance of social class and social change in the Maigret stories, giving a particular emphasis to the early formative novels and the development of plot, characterization and setting. The author seeks to establish the extent to which Simenon's portrait of French society is historically accurate and the nature of the influence of the author's own class position and ideology on his fiction.