The Mahé Circle

Book excerpt: “A writer as comfortable with reality as with fiction, with passion as with reason.” —John Le Carré The first-ever English publication of Georges Simenon’s compelling novel about summer escape and elusive obsessions “The island itself. Its throbbing heat as if in a belljar under the sun, the scorpion in his son’s bed, the deafening sound of cicadas.” During his first holiday on the island of Porquerolles, Dr. Mahé caught a glimpse of something irresistible. As the memory continues to haunt him, he falls prey to a delusion that may offer an escape from his conventional existence—or may destroy him. Taut, insightful, and impossible to put down, this is the first English translation of The Mahé Circle, Simenon’s dark, malevolent depiction of an ordinary man trapped in mundanity and consumed by obsession.