Maigret Set Two

Maigret in Society, Maigret Sets a Trap and Maigret’s Mistake

Georges Simenon

Illustrated by Harry Brockway

The second Folio Maigret collection brings together three of Georges Simenon’s engrossing detective novels, alongside woodcut illustrations by the great Harry Brockway.

The quintessential French detective returns in this irresistible three-volume collection of classic crime novels, each carefully chosen by our editors to represent the very best of Jules Maigret. In Maigret in Society, Maigret Sets a Trap and Maigret’s Mistake, we see the detective wrestle with the upper echelons of the French aristocracy, attempt to foil a crazed murderer on the streets of Paris, and investigate the pervasive influence of a charismatic brain surgeon. Full of the psychological astuteness and elegant writing that made Simenon enormously popular among his fellow writers as well as with readers, these three volumes feature stylish illustrations by Folio favourite Harry Brockway. Produced in series with our first Maigret collection, the smart bindings are blocked with a classic image of the detective, showing his pipe and heavy overcoat, and his head bent in thought. An essential collection for any fan of sophisticated crime fiction.

The names of the victims and of the streets where they had been attacked, and the hours of the different murders, had become familiar to all newspaper readers, and for Maigret they were a veritable obsession

PRODUCTION DETAILS

Bound in printed and blocked cloth

Set in Garamond with Trajan as display

472 pages in total

Frontispiece and 4 integrated black & white woodblock illustrations in each volume

Spotted Eco endpapers

Blocked cloth slipcase

8¾˝ x 5½˝ 

UNCOVERING THE SECRETS AT THE HEART OF EVERY MYSTERY

The streets of Paris are sweltering in the midst of a steamy summer, but terror has an icy grip on the hearts of the city’s inhabitants: a serial killer is stalking the women of Paris, with five already dead after frenzied stabbings. In Maigret Sets a Trap, the detective, desperate to scare up a lead, hatches a plan that appeals to the murderer’s vanity – but has Maigret made a fatal miscalculation? Maigret’s Mistake sees the detective struggling to get to the heart of the mystery surrounding a young woman found murdered in her apartment. What interest does the married doctor who lives above her have in the case, and why was he paying the woman’s rent? In Maigret in Society, Maigret must navigate the rarefied society of the most exclusive quarter of Paris when an ambassador is savagely shot to death in his own study. Uncomfortable in a world of old money and antiquated attitudes, Maigret is initially led in circles until a collection of letters reveals the tragic truth.

A SECOND ESSENTIAL COLLECTION

Harry Brockway’s distinctive illustrations have been popular with Folio readers for many years. As well as producing beautiful work for The Folio Society, Brockway has also carved stone for the National Trust and crafted coin designs for The Royal Mint. For this three-volume Maigret set, Brockway has turned his eye once again to the classic French detective, creating a series of bold black-and-white prints that capture the atmosphere and emotional heft of Georges Simenon’s works. Produced in series with Folio’s first set of Maigret novels, the bindings feature a striking image of the detective himself, while the title on the slipcase is blocked in silver.

MAIGRETLAND

‘Compelling … Simenon shows how close the deranged mind is to the ordinary mind’

Financial Times

George Simenon was a remarkably prolific writer, producing hundreds of novels and numerous short stories in his lifetime, but it is for the creation of the French detective Jules Maigret that he is most celebrated. Although born in Belgium, Simenon moved to Paris with his lover Régine Renchon in 1922 and became deeply familiar with the city’s lively nightlife, especially its bars, bistros and restaurants. This intimacy flavours his Maigret novels, creating what Julian Barnes called ‘Maigretland’: a romanticised version of France that nevertheless retains a sense of grit amongst the glamour. P. D. James wrote that Simenon was ‘a writer who, more than any other crime novelist, combined a high literary reputation with popular appeal’ – and it is his exquisite writing that keeps readers returning to the Maigret novels, eager to once again walk the streets of Paris alongside the stoic detective.

ABOUT GEORGES SIMENON

Georges Simenon was born in Liège in 1903. In 1919 he started working at the Gazette de Liège, where he first learned about the world of crime that would so strongly influence his writing. In his late teens Simenon moved to Paris, where he began writing his hugely successful books about Maigret, the French police detective. The series started with Pietr le Letton (1931) and continued until Maigret et Monsieur Charles (1972), over 40 years and 74 novels later. Simenon became known as one of the most prolific and best-selling crime writers of his time. At 70 years of age Simenon retired from writing fiction, although he continued to write non-fiction until his death in Lausanne in 1989.

ABOUT HARRY BROCKWAY

Harry Brockway was born in Newport, South Wales, in 1958. He studied sculpture at Kingston-upon-Thames Art School and at the Royal Academy Schools in London before training to become a stonemason. Since 1989 he has worked as a stone-carver and illustrator. He uses a range of sculpting materials to create his art, including limestone, sandstone, slate, marble and wood. He has been a member of the Society of Wood Engravers since 1984, and has produced a significant body of work for Folio Society publications, including Frankenstein (2004; 2015), The Vision of Piers the Plowman (2014) and The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (2010; 2017).