The 13 Culprits

By Georges Simenon

1638

First Published

2.94

Average Rating

178

Number of Pages

5H26M

Audio Length

SIMENON—BEFORE MAIGRET! Georges Simenon (1903-1989) not only created the finest series of French detective novels in the cases of Inspector Jules Maigret, but he was also, according to André Gide, "perhaps the greatest and most truly ‘novelistic' novelist in France today." But before he wrote about Maigret, he contributed series of short tales to the magazine Détective in 1929 and 1930, collected in 3 books. The first of those volumes, The 13 Culprits, has never previously been published in English, despite extravagant praise from Alexander Woolcott, Ellery Queen, and other experts. The detections of Monsieur Froget, the "Examining Magistrate," are set among the people of a city the young Simenon knew well. As the translator, Peter Schulman, says in the introduction, "it is a marginal Paris, populated by society's losers who, for one reason or another, are brought down by a petty vice, or a greedy aspiration, that invariably leads to a bitter sense of failure in their lives … and, of course, a crime they hubristically think they can get away with. It is the lonely city within all levels of the Parisian mosaic; a Paris made up of eccentric individuals who all, in some manner or another, feel as though they have been hung out to dry on the fringes of society." It is a Paris of prostitutes, adventurers, circus artistes, and the flotsam thrown up by the First World War. It is a world captured by a great writer.

Avg Rating

2.94

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5 STARS

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3 STARS

48%

2 STARS

26%

1 STARS

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Author

Georges Simenon

Author · 195 books

Georges Joseph Christian Simenon (1903 – 1989) was a Belgian writer. A prolific author who published nearly 500 novels and numerous short works, Simenon is best known as the creator of the fictional detective Jules Maigret. Although he never resided in Belgium after 1922, he remained a Belgian citizen throughout his life. Simenon was one of the most prolific writers of the twentieth century, capable of writing 60 to 80 pages per day. His oeuvre includes nearly 200 novels, over 150 novellas, several autobiographical works, numerous articles, and scores of pulp novels written under more than two dozen pseudonyms. Altogether, about 550 million copies of his works have been printed. He is best known, however, for his 75 novels and 28 short stories featuring Commissaire Maigret. The first novel in the series, Pietr-le-Letton, appeared in 1931; the last one, Maigret et M. Charles, was published in 1972. The Maigret novels were translated into all major languages and several of them were turned into films and radio plays. Two television series (1960-63 and 1992-93) have been made in Great Britain. During his "American" period, Simenon reached the height of his creative powers, and several novels of those years were inspired by the context in which they were written (Trois chambres à Manhattan (1946), Maigret à New York (1947), Maigret se fâche (1947)). Simenon also wrote a large number of "psychological novels", such as La neige était sale (1948) or Le fils (1957), as well as several autobiographical works, in particular Je me souviens (1945), Pedigree (1948), Mémoires intimes (1981). In 1966, Simenon was given the MWA's highest honor, the Grand Master Award. In 2005 he was nominated for the title of De Grootste Belg (The Greatest Belgian). In the Flemish version he ended 77th place. In the Walloon version he ended 10th place.