The 13 Culprits

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 Andr 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 Dtective 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.