“I invent the most hopeless sounding plots; very often they are based on something I’ve read in a newspaper. And people say, ‘Oh, this is all nonsense’—and then the Russians come along in Germany and shoot people with potassium cyanide pistols.”

Between them, Ian Fleming and Georges Simenon created two of the best-known heroes of modern fiction. In this illuminating dialogue, the authors who gave us James Bond and Jules Maigret discuss (among other things) their approaches to the craft of writing, the origins of their characters’ names, and the critical reception of their novels. It is essential reading for admirers of either man’s work.

Eris Gems make available in the form of beautifully produced saddle-stitched booklets a series of outstanding short works of fiction and non-fiction.

Ian Fleming (1908-64) spent much of the Second World War working on high-level intelligence operations and went on to draw upon this experience in his subsequent career as a spy novelist. His 1952 novel Casino Royale saw the first appearance of James Bond.

The Belgian author Georges Simenon (1903-89) is most famous for the detective stories he wrote starring Commissioner Jules Maigret, who appears in seventy-five of Simenon’s many novels. Maigret made his debut in Pietr-le-Letton (1931).