"Simenon could produce endless variations, as similar and as different as Shakespeare's sonnets or Monet's haystacks." --Adam Kirsch

When the glamorous wife of an American industrialist is murdered at a luxury Paris hotel, her past life as a nightclub dancer is the key to finding the killer. As Maigret traces surprising connections between the dead woman and the hotel's belowstairs staff, a story of unrequited love, self-reinvention, and blackmail emerges--with one tragic, luckless suspect at the center.

Yet as Maigret knows, even the most compelling evidence isn't infallible. Might a murkier, more disquieting truth lie behind the apparent facts of the matter? A riveting mystery and a startling journey into the darker corners of human nature, The Cellars of the Majestic showcases the full range of Georges Simenon's uncanny psychological insight.