The Hatter's Ghosts

Nobody mentioned the victims, or the terror that had gripped the town. For the last twenty days it had rained and between the usual quiet conversations and card games, only the trickle of water and the air of cold fear could be detected. A serial killer stalks La Rochelle''s cobbled streets - and by the most unfortunate of occurrences, Kachoudas, a poor timid tailor and a newcomer to the town, knows exactly who it is...One of Georges Simenon''s darkest novels, The Hatter''s Ghosts is a riveting portrait of murder and subterfuge, at once a cat and mouse thriller and an acute physiological study of the criminal imagination.>

Autorentext
Georges Simenon was born in Liège, Belgium in 1903. An intrepid traveller with a profound interest in people, Simenon strove on and off the page to understand, rather than to judge, the human condition in all its shades. His novels include the Inspector Maigret series and a richly varied body of wider work united by its evocative power, its economy of means, and its penetrating psychological insight. He is among the most widely read writers in the global canon. He died in 1989 in Lausanne, Switzerland, where he had lived for the latter part of his life.

Klappentext

A masterful tale of murder and intrigue in a small French town, from the celebrated author of the Maigret series

Not only had the rain in the dark streets, with a halo around each light and reflections on the ground, always given him a certain thrill, it also made it easier for him to move around.

It has been raining for twenty days in La Rochelle - ever since the first murder. Since then, five more bodies have been found. In the cafes, over card games, a quiet terror of the killer in their midst spreads through the little town. But unknown to anyone, Kachoudas, a poor, timid tailor, has discovered, quite by accident, who the murderer is. As a twisted cat and mouse game begins, Simenon's chilling novel takes us into the darkness of the criminal mind.

'Dark, disturbing ... Simenon discovered something fundamental about the soul' Guardian