Georges Simenon
Georges Joseph Christian Simenon (1903-1989) was a Belgian writer who wrote in French. He was extraordinarily prolific, publishing over 500 novels and numerous shorter works. He is best known and mostly represented here by his novels featuring the detective Jules Maigret.
Between 1931 and 1972, Simenon published 75 novels and 28 short stories featuring Commissaire Maigret. In doing so he created one of the great detective personas, worthy of Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot and Jane Marple, Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe and Travis McGee. Compared to such colleagues, Maigret is almost nondescript — he is gruff, patient, scrupulously fair, quiet, persistent, thoughtful, non-demonstrative. He has no real eccentricities, no flourishes, no quirks, no attitude other than determining what happened and who was responsible. And yet, his world and his existence in it is compelling, even addictive. Whatever issues his creator may have had with truth and good behavior, Maigret is dedicated to them in all their relative messy relationships with people and their stories and their lives.
The books do not have to be read in any particular order. Once you sample one, however, and want to try some more (inevitably), you may want to read a stretch of them in the order in which they were written. Sometimes the only clues to the passing of time in our “real” world are the technological changes mentioned in the novels. Maigret — ageless, steadfast — remains the same.
Maigret and the Killer ( Inspector Maigret #70 )
Maigret and the Killer ( Inspector Maigret #70 )
When a dinner between Inspector Maigret and friends ends abruptly at the discovery of a body, the detective must plumb the darker side of human nature to discover what motivates a killer
Maigret and wife have always enjoyed their occasional dinners with Mr. and Mrs. Pardon on the Boulevard Voltaire. But one of the congenial meals is interrupted by a neighbor who has stumbled across the body of a young man in the nearby Rue Popincourt. Maigret answers the call with his friend Dr. Pardon, and their pleasant evening is quickly brought to an end by the commencement of a complicated murder case. And when a tape recorder is discovered on the victim's body, it only complicates matters.
Maigret's investigation leads to the discovery of another crime altogether and the fascinating story of the murdered man's life. Maigret and the Killer is a taut, engrossing mystery that shows off Georges Simenon's flair for creating complex characters with deeply human problems and his ability to make a senseless crime understandable.