Inspector Maigret

Maigret sets the record straight and tells the story of his own life, giving a rare glimpse into the mind of the great inspector - and the writer who would immortalise him. 'I can still see Simenon coming into my office the next day, pleased with himself, displaying even more self-confidence, if possible, than before, but nevertheless with a touch of anxiety in his eyes.... He trumpeted these last words as if they were a sensational discovery. Making it seem truer than life, that's the crux of it. Well, I've made you truer than life.'

A young cabaret dancer in a black silk dress leads Maigret into a seamy world of nightclubs, drug addiction and exploitation on the streets of Montmartre. 'He opened the door for her and watched her walk away down the huge corridor, then hesitate at the top of the stairs. Heads turned as she passed. You sensed she came from a different world, the world of the night, and there was something almost indecent about her in the harsh light of a winter's day.'

When one of his best inspectors is shot, Maigret decides to book himself into Mademoiselle Clément's well-kept Paris boardinghouse nearby in order to find the culprit. 'What he thought he had discovered, in place of the joyful candour that she usually displayed, was an irony which was neither less cheerful nor less childish, but which troubled him....'

A visit from the tall, thin woman he arrested many years ago - now married to a hapless burglar - leads Maigret on a tortuous investigation in which he struggles with a formidable suspect. This novel has been published in previous translations as Maigret and the Burglar's Wife.'

In book 39 of the new Penguin Maigret, the inspector learns that his hapless colleague Lognon is being menaced by some notorious American mobsters, and he makes it his mission to bring them to justice - despite threatening warnings that he is out of his depth. This story has been published in a previous translation as Inspector Maigret and the Killers.

When Maigret's .45 revolver is stolen from his home, he becomes embroiled in a murder in which the gun may have played a deadly role. Maigret is the victim of a burglary in which the .45 revolver he had received as a gift from the FBI is stolen. That evening Maigret attends a dinner where François Lagrange, an acquaintance of Maigret's friend, is expected but fails to appear due to ill health. Following his instincts, Maigret decides to investigate Lagrange's absence and uncovers a body stowed in a trunk....

Inspector Maigret must untangle the web of lies left behind by a murdered man whose family didn't know him as well as they thought. When a man is found stabbed to death in an alley off Boulevard Saint-Martin, his identity card shows a workplace that had gone out of business three years earlier. As far as his wife knew, he still worked there, and she insists that the shoes and a tie he was wearing when he was killed 'couldn't be his'.

Maigret stumbles upon a series of murders in Fontenay-le-Comte while visiting an old school friend. On his way home from a conference, Maigret stops to visit an old school friend in Fontenay-le-Comte. A man in the same train car introduces himself and asks if Maigret has come to help solve the murder case. In fact, the man's brother-in-law had been murdered four days earlier, followed by the murder of a local widow in the same way, a blow to the head with a pipe.

A young woman named Lulu, who has a history of brushes with the law and once lived on the streets of the 18th arrondissement, is found murdered in Paris. Maigret is called to the scene and soon learns that her boyfriend, a musician, has gone into hiding upon reading the news of her death. And when the inspector learns that the young victim was pregnant, he begins to suspect the case might be more sinister than he imagined.

When a school teacher from a small coastal town near La Rochelle asks Maigret to help prove he is innocent of murder, the Inspector returns with him to his insular community and finds the residents closing ranks to conceal the truth.

Maigret and his fellow inspector Lognon find themselves trying to outmanoeuver each other when they investigate the case of a mysterious young woman whose new life in Paris is tragically cut short. Maigret wouldn't have admitted that what intrigued him most was the victim's face. All he had seen of it so far was one profile. Was it the bruises that gave her that sullen air? She looked like a bad-tempered little girl. Her combed-back brown hair was very smooth but naturally wavy.

When a public tragedy threatens to expose a scandal within the Paris government, the Minister of Public Works calls in a favour to Maigret. A public project has collapsed and resulted in the death of 128 children after a report warning officials about the unsafe structure was disregarded. Now, that report has resurfaced, along with allegations that several politicians and contractors involved with the project may have suppressed its findings to avoid a scandal.

When a man’s headless body is discovered in Paris’ Saint-Martin Canal, Maigret is quick to answer the call. It is in this very neighborhood that he meets a strangely taciturn woman who runs a cafe. Her husband is away on a trip - or so she says. As is often the case, Maigret soon learns that there is more to the story than meets the eye.

Paris comes under siege when someone starts killing women on the streets one summer - and Maigret must hatch a plan to lure the murderer out. It was 4 August. The windows were wide open but brought no relief, since they allowed in even more warm air, which seemed to be rising from the melting tarmac, the burning hot stonework and even the Seine itself: one could imagine the river steaming like a pan of water on a stove.

When a self-made man appeals to Maigret for protection at his lavish home, a years-old grudge from the past resurfaces and the inspector finds himself questioning his own motives. Conflict rather than harmony probably reigned in eight out of 10 of the still magnificent houses that surrounded the park. But he had rarely had the opportunity to breath such a strained atmosphere as the one between these walls.

Inspector Maigret is meant to be taking a holiday, but he can't resist following the development of his colleague Janvier's case in the papers - and playing a few tricks on the way. Standing at the window in the middle of the morning, vaguely observing the comings and goings in the street, he had a feeling that reminded him of certain days in his childhood, when his mother was still alive and he was off school because he had the flu or it was the end of term. It was the feeling of finding out what went on when he wasn't there.

The attempted suicide of a countess and the death of a billionaire in the same luxury Paris hotel send Maigret to the Riviera and then to Switzerland, as he searches for the truth amid the glittering world of the super rich. Eyes half closed, head tilted against the back of his seat, he seemed not to be thinking, as the plane flew over a thick carpet of bright clouds. In reality, he was making an effort to bring names and shadowy figures to life, names and figures that even this morning had been as unknown to him as the inhabitants of another planet.

When a salesman from a Paris department store confides his secret fears to Maigret, the Inspector soon becomes caught up in a treacherous feud between husband and wife that is not as clear cut as it seems.

A once-wealthy family closes ranks when one of their own is shot, leaving Maigret - along with a troublesome new magistrate - to pick his way through their secrets.

At a dinner party, Maigret recounts an old case in which Adrien Josset is found guilty and executed for the murder of his wife, Christine. As the case develops under the controlling hand of the magistrate, all clues point to Josset's guilt, yet Maigret is left unconvinced following his one interview with him. Years after the case, Maigret still doubts the true identity of the murderer. This novel has been published in a previous translation as Maigret Has Doubts.