'The father of contemporary European detective fiction' Ann Cleeves

Inspector Maigret's Holiday takes an unexpected turn in this classic novel featuring Simenon's literary legend

Inspector Maigret's wife has fallen ill during their seaside holiday at Les Sables-d'Olonne. When he visits her in the hospital, he receives a strange note instructing him to see a patient in another ward. Soon he finds himself unexpectedly drawn into a quest to find justice for a young girl - and confronting an evil that is hidden in plain sight.

Translated by Ros Schwartz

Other titles in this collection include: Maigret Sets a Trap, Maigret Defends Himself, Maigret's Doubts, Maigret's Pickpocket, Maigret's Patience, The Saint-Fiacre Affair, Maigret and the Lazy Burglar, The Carter of 'La Providence', Maigret and the Old People, Maigret's Dead Man and Maigret in Vichy

'Not just the world's bestselling detective series, but an imperishable literary legend' The Times

"The novels brim with atmosphere, insight and intelligence . . . quite unlike anything else written before or since" - The Times

"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

"The father of contemporary European detective fiction . . . I loved the exotic setting of Parisian bars and run-down hotels, the economic storytelling" - Guardian

"A great writer of detail, of atmosphere. His descriptions of Paris influenced me" - Financial Times

"To inhabit the vividly realised world of Parisian streets, dives, bistros and high-class hotels . . . it is this unfailing humanity that makes the Maigret books truly worth reading" - Guardian

"Exceptional… Simenon’s writing still seems fresh…one of the great pleasures is the summoning of France’s many landscapes and accompanying social milieux . . . There is also, and it’s a chief glory of the books, a whole range of different Parises, from the shiny rich to the hypocritical bourgeois middle to the struggling, furious world of the poor, desperate and professionally criminal" - Times Literary Supplement