It was indeed a photograph, a picture of a woman. But the face was completely hidden, scribbled all over in red ink. Someone had tried to obliterate the head, someone very angry. The pen had bitten into the paper. There were so many criss-crossed lines that not a single square millimetre had been left visible. ‘One of the greatest writers of the twentieth century…Simenon was unequalled at making us look inside, though the ability was masked by his brilliance at absorbing us obsessively in his stories.’

 

— The Guardian

'I love reading Simenon. He makes me think of Chekhov.'

 

— William Faulkner

'The greatest of all, the most genuine novelist we have had in literature'

 

— André Gide

‘A supreme writer…unforgettable vividness’

 

— The Independent

'Superb... The most addictive of writers... A unique teller of tales'

 

— The Observer

‘Compelling, remorseless, brilliant.’

 

— John Gray

'A truly wonderful writer... marvellously readable - lucid, simple, absolutely in tune with the workd he creates'

 

— Muriel Spark

'A novelist who entered his fictional world as it he were a part of it'

 

— Peter Ackroyd

'Extraordinary masterpieces of the twentieth century'

 

— John Banville