The Judge S House

The Judge's House Illustrated

In the story, a student arrives in a small town looking for a quiet place to stay while preparing for his examination. Making light of the local superstitions, he moves into an old mansion where a notorious hanging judge once lived. He is comfortably settled and engrossed in his work when, in the middle of the night, he is visited by an enormous rat with baleful eyes. As soon as the giant rat appears, other rats that infest the old house fall silent. When the great rat returns on the second night, the student begins to feel uneasy. He soon learns why the locals fear the Judge's House.

The Judges House

The Judge's House (Inspector Maigret)

“The most extraordinary fictive shaper in our time.” —George Steiner Exiled to a sleepy town in western France, Maigret is relieved when he has to handle a challenging case. There’s been a murder in a mussel farming village and its most respected resident, the former judge Monsieur Forlacroix, has tried to dispose of the body in the river. But why will no one admit to knowing the dead man? And what connects him to Forlacroix’s pianist daughter, Lise, who is kept locked in her bedroom? With studied patience and an eye for subliminal clues, Maigret teases out the dark secrets that everyone in this insular community, it seems, has a motive to protect. A heady and atmospheric page-turner, The Judge’s House is Georges Simenon at his suspenseful best.