Allreaders.com

Message Board

Georges Simenon Message Board
Talk about the novels, new and used books that Simenon has written!

Author Simenon's Book Reviews

A Bar on the Seine
One day, Maigret visits Jean Lenoir, a criminal, in his cell to tell him that his reprieve was not granted. Lenoir starts to talk about something very different, how one day someone dumped a body in canal Saint-Martin and how he and his friend Victor had seen him and blackmailed him. In time, he lost track of him but he run into him once at the inn Guinguette a Deux Sous. Some time later, when Maigret is buying a hat, he overhears a man planning to go to...
A Battle of Nerves
Inspector Maigret requests permission to let a prisoner from a maximum security prison “escape”. He was convicted of having killed a rich American, Mrs. Henderson and her French maid, Elise Chatrier, at saint Claud. But Maigret is convinced that this man, Joseph Heurtin, was either innocent or mad, even if his fingerprints and footprints were found everywhere, he was seen in the neighborhood and he dropped a Paris-Saint Calud ticket. What puzzles maigre...
A Crime in Holland
Maigret goes to Delfzijl, in the Netherlands, as an unofficial representative of the Police Judiciaire, for a French professor, Jean Duclos, from the University of Nancy, is being detained in the case of the murder of Conrad Popinga, a retired sea captain, whose guest he'd been while delivering a lecture on criminology. Popinga had been shot from his bathroom window, as he was returning to his house by bicycle, after seeing home Beetje Liewens, a neighbo...
At the Gai Moulin
One day, two young boys in Liege decide to rob the Gai Moulin, after it closes. They manage to sneak in but, inside, they see the body of a man, the Greek that has been there earlier and they run away, or at least this is what they pretend to have done. The next day, the body is found staffed in a wicker basket at the zoo. The boys are arrested, but a mysterious Frenchman seems to be connected to all this affair. In fact, this stranger is none other th...

Simenon booklist

Death of a Harbor Master
A man found wandering around Paris, unable to speak, is finally identified as the harbor-master of Ouistreham, Capt. Yves Joris. His house-keeper and companion, Julie Legrand, comes to Paris to get him, and Maigret accompanies them back to Ouistreham. Joris had been shot in the head, and excellently operated on, but doesn't seem aware of who he is. Among his letters had been found a bank statement that someone had deposited 300,000 francs to his account....
Death of a Nobody
Maigret is called to the apartment of Maurice Tremblet, where, according to his wife, Juliette Tremblet, he was getting ready for bed, when she heard a strange pshuittt sound, and he fell over dead. He seemed like such an average person, Maigret couldn't conceive of his being killed, but in fact it had been by an airgun from the hotel across the way. Dr Paul said it was just an accident he was killed by that shot, as the bullet had hit a soft spot and bo...
Death of a Woodlander
Maigret is called to a tiny village lost in time, Vitry-aux-Loges, in the forest of Orléans. An old woman had been killed, Marguerite Potru, 62, stabbed to death. Her sister, Amélie Potru, 65, had numerous stab wounds, none serious. But since that time she'd refused to speak or leave her bed. Share certificates and valuable papers were found to be missing. The evidence, including especially fingerprints, suggested that Marguerite's son, Marcel Potru, a r...
Death Penalty
Though there is no evidence, Maigret is convinced that Jehan d'Oulmont, a Belgian, has killed his uncle, Count Adalbert d'Oulmont, at the Hôtel du Louvre in Paris. But his alibi is that he was at Longchamp at the time, and it can't be broken. Maigret decides to dog him and his mistress, Sonia Lipchitz, and so returns with them to Brussels, and watches as their funds dwindle. He hopes to force them to reveal the stolen money. At a nightclub Maigret appea...
Death Threats
Émile Grosbois, a wealthy rag and scrap merchant of Rue du Chemin-Vert, received a death threat, in the form of a message from words and letters cut out from a newspaper, that he will die before 6:00 on Sunday, and the Chief has asked Maigret to go out to his villa in Coudray on Saturday to keep watch. As soon as he leaves the office his brother, Oscar Grosbois calls, and Maigret goes to see in him the Rue du Chemin-Vert, where he tells Maigret his broth...
Inspector Maigret and the Burglar's Wife
One day, Ernestine Micou, a woman who Maigret has arrested 17 years before, comes to him and tells the story of a strange adventure her husband, Alfred Jussiame, a safecracker, has had in Neuilly, where he found the dead body of a woman while committing a burglary. Maigret goes there and finds that the inhabitants of the house were a dentist, Guillaume Serre and his mother but they pretend that there was no burglary and no dead body. However, the strange...

Georges Simenon list of books

Inspector Maigret and the Killers
Commissar Maigret receives a phone call from Mrs. Lognon, that her husband, the Inspector, has disappeared and that gangsters have broken into her house. Maigret finds Mr. Lognon and learns from him that, while on a stake-out, he saw a body dumped from a car and when he went to call the police, the body disappeared. Beginning the investigation, the commissar finds out that the car was rented by Bill Larner, a well known con man from the US and that two o...
Inspector Maigret and the Missing Miniatures
The commissar Maigret meets Mr. Motte, a lawer from Chateauneuf. He tells Maigret that somebody has stolen his collection of oriental miniatures. He suspects Gerard Donovant, the fiancées of one of his daughters, Armande. However, the whole business is strange, as no one could sell these objects since they are easily identifiable. Maigret goes to Chateauneuf disguised as Mr. Legros, an old army friend of Mr. Motte. Here, he recognizes the one who p...
Inspector Maigret Deduces
Inspector Maigret is called one morning by his nephew, Paul Vinchon, inspector at the Belgian border at Jeaumont who asks for his help in a complicated murder case: the killing of Otto Braun, a Jewish banker from Stuttgart. Until Maigret gets there, a man carying a large sum of money in securities is arrested and brought to Jeaumont. He tried to run away from the train. Maigret questions the other passengers to find out more about his seating arrangement...
Inspector Maigret Directs
Maigret has to meet again with one of his formers “clients”, Frederic Michaux, known in Paris as Fred the Boxer, whom he arrested ten years earlier, along with his wife, Julia. Now he investigates a crime at the inn Le Pont du Grau, owned by Frederic. There, two men had come from out of the town for the auction of the farm of Groux. One of them had been playing cards all night long, together with Frederic, Pere Nicolas and Gentil. The other one, Borchain...
Inspector Maigret Hesitates
Inspector Maigret has to go to Neuilly to investigate the strange death of Olga Boulanger, a servant girl, at the desperate request of her parents. The girl was working at the home of Dr. Armand Barion, and after her death it was found that she had been two month pregnant. It seemed that the father of the child was the chauffeur Martin Vignolet. The autopsy had revealed that her intestine had been perforated as a result of ingesting rye spears. This was...
Madame Maigret's Admirer
When Mrs. Maigret noticed a man sitting across from their flat in the Place des Vosges every day, Maigret took to kidding her about him, calling him "her secret admirer". She noticed that when he was there, there was usually a young blonde governess on an opposite bench. One day Maigret is surprised to see the man there while he is at home, seemingly asleep. At closing time of the park, the man still hasn't moved, and Maigret goes down and discovers he's...

Georges Simenon novels

Madame Maigret's Own Case
An anonymous note to the police reports that a body has been burnt in the furnace of the bookbinder, Frans Steuvels, on the Rue de Turenne. Preliminary investigations turn up suspicious details, and two human teeth are found in the furnace, of a man who'd been alive not long before. Steuvels is held in custody. Meanwhile Mrs. Maigret has had a strange experience while waiting for her dentist appointment. A woman she had often met on the bench while waiti...
Mademoiselle Berthe and Her Lover
Maigret, in retirement on the banks of the Loire at Meung-sur-Loire, receives a letter from a young girl, Berthe who claims her life was threatened, and who says she was the niece of a man who was for a long time his colleague in the Police Judiciaire, and who died by his side shortly before Maigret's retirement, Lucas. She asks him to meet her in the Café de Madrid, where she explains that her ex-boyfriend, Albert Marcinelle, had fallen in with bad comp...
Maigret Afraid
On his way back from a meeting of the International Police Congress in Bordeaux, Maigret stops to visit his old school friend, Julien Chabot, in Fontenay-le-Comte. A man in the same train car, Hubert Vernoux, introduces himself and asks if Maigret has come to help solve the murder case. In fact, Vernoux's brother-in-law, Robert de Courçon had been murdered four days earlier, followed by the murder of the Widow Gibon in the same way, a blow to the head wi...
Maigret and Monsieur Charles
Mrs. Nathalie Sabin-Levesque appears in Maigret's office and reports that her husband, Gérard Sabin-Levesque, the well-known lawyer, has been missing for a month. He'd often gone off for up to a week at a time with his temporary girlfriends, but in those cases he'd always called his office. Maigret begins to investigate the nightclubs Sabin-Levesque had gone to and learns that he was well-known as Mr. Charles. Nathalie Sabin-Levesque is an alcoholic, and...
Maigret and the Black Sheep
Maigret is called to the home of René Josselin, a retired cardboard box company owner, who has been found shot in his chair at home. His wife, Francine Josselin and daughter, Véronique Fabre, had found him when they returned home from an evening at the theater. He had stayed home, and played chess with his son-in-law, Doctor Paul Fabre, who'd been called away to a sick child... only there was no sick child, and no one at that address knew anything about ...
Maigret and the Concarneau Murders
Maigret, assigned for the past month to Rennes to reorganize the Flying Squad [Brigade Mobile], is called to Concarneau, where Mr. Mostaguen, Concarneau's biggest wine dealer, was shot after leaving the Admiral Café. Circumstances make it appear that it was only chance that made him the victim. When Maigret arrives at the Admiral Hotel, and is drinking with the other members of Mostaguen's group, Ernest Michoux, a non-practicing doctor and real estate de...

Georges Simenon information

Maigret and the Countess
Maigret goes to Saint-Fiacre, his home town, after noticing a note that had been received by the Moulins police, and sent up to Paris, warning that a crime was going to be committed in the Church at Saint-Fiacre, during the first Mass. And in fact, before Maigret's very eyes, the old Countess de Saint-Fiacre dies during the mass... of heart failure. Maigret locates her missal, in which a fake newspaper story of her son's suicide had been planted. Her son...
Maigret and the Dosser
An attempted murder of a down-and-outer: While he was sleeping under the Pont Marie, someone had hit "Doc" over the head and tossed him into the Seine to drown, but a couple of Belgian bargemen nearby had fished him out in time to save him. His identity card reveals that he is François Keller, from Mulhouse, where, coincidentally, Mrs. Maigret's sister lives. Thus Maigret learns that he had been a doctor there, left his wife and daughter and gone off to ...
Maigret and the Flemish Shop
Maigret goes to Givet, on the Meuse, the Belgian border, at the request of Anna Peeters, who has come to Paris with a letter of reference from Mrs. Maigret's cousin in Nancy. The Peeters have a shop, the Épicerie Peeters, catering especially to the Belgian barges, and besides Anna there is a son, Joseph Peeters, a law student, and a daughter, Maria Peeters, a teacher in the Ursuline school. Joseph is said to have fathered a son, Jojo, with Germaine Piedb...
Maigret and the Fortuneteller
Joseph Mascouvin reports to the police that he has found a note on a blotter in a café saying that a fortuneteller will be murdered at 5:00, and in fact, Miss Jeanne is found murdered shortly after. Locked in her kitchen is an old man, Picard, actually her father, who has been masquerading for ten years as Octave Le Cloaguen, so that Mrs. Antoinette Le Cloaguen can continue to receive the yearly income payable to her husband as long as he lives. Picard h...
Maigret and the Ghost
Maigret had just wound up the case of what the papers have called the Motorcycle Gang, young men on motorcycles robbing jewelers. In the morning Lapointe came by to tell him Lognon had been shot, in the Avenue Junot, and taken to Bichat for surgery. At the Avenue Junot they find that Lognon had been staying nights in the room of Marinette Augier, but it soons becomes clear that he was doing some kind of surveillance. Marinette Augier has disappeared sinc...
Maigret and the Headless Corpse
The dismembered body of a man is found in the Saint-Martin Canal. Maigret stops at a small café in the neighborhood, near Quai de Valmy, and is intrigued by the proprietress, Aline Calas, who is unusually taciturn. He slowly begins to wonder if the body might be her husband, Omer Calas, supposedly away on a trip. Eventually that proves to be the case, when she turns out to be an heiress who hated her father, and ran away with a married man 25 years earli...
Maigret and the Hotel Majestic
A guest at the Hotel Majestic has been strangled — Mimi Clark, the wife of an American industrialist from Detroit, Oswald Clark. Her body is found early in the morning, in a locker in the kitchen cloakroom, by the breakfast cook, Prosper Donge. Maigret spends the day in the kitchen, but doesn't question Donge until he is on his way home to Saint-Cloud by bicycle, when Maigret, also on a bicycle, rides back with him to his home, where his girlfriend Charl...
Maigret and the Informer
Maurice Marcia, the ex-gangster owner of the fashionable restaurant on the Rue Fontaine, The Sardine, is found murdered in the Avenue Junot, apparently killed elsewhere. He'd left his restaurant during the late evening, after receiving a phone call. Inspector Louis, who knows the 9th arrondissement well, has received a reliable tip, via an anonymous phone call, that Manuel Mori was the killer. He and his brother, Jo Mori, are suspected of being behind th...
Maigret and the Killer
While Maigret is dining at Pardon's a neighbor, Gino Pagliati comes in to report that a young man has been stabbed in the Rue Popincourt. He was Antoine Batille, son of the owner of Mylène perfume and beauty aids. He'd been wearing a tape recorder, as his hobby was recording and collecting sounds and conversations. He died upon arrival at the hospital. There seemed to be no motive for the crime, but one of his last recordings included a conversation at t...
Maigret and the Lazy Burglar
A body has been found, dumped in the Bois de Boulogne, face battered. Aristide Fumel, Maigret's old colleague from the 16th, calls him about it, though under present rules the Public Prosecutor's office is bound to feel it's outside of Maigret's province, and besides, he's supposed to be working on the rash of robberies. But Maigret goes to the park and recognizes the body, Honoré Cuendet, a quiet burglar Maigret had known for 30 years. Maigret goes to J...
Maigret and the Loner
An apparently elderly vagrant, who turns out to be closer to 55, is shot to death in an abandoned building where he was sleeping. He was Marcel Vivien, a man who twenty years earlier had been a married cabinetmaker, with an 8-year-old daugther. He'd withdrawn all his money from the bank one day and left his family without a word, having fallen in love with a 20-year old girl, Nina Lassave. When 6 months later he found she was deceiving him, he strangled ...
Maigret and the Madwoman
A little old lady, Léontine Antoine, tries to see Maigret at the Quai des Orfèvres. Lapointe interviews her and they learn that she believes someone has been in her apartment, as things have been moved around. She approaches Maigret in the street and makes him promise to come, but before he has a chance, he learns she has been murdered in her apartment. Apparently she'd returned while the unknown intruder was there. If only Maigret can learn what the mys...
Maigret and the Man on the Bench
When Louis Thouret is found stabbed to death in an alley off Boulevard Saint-Martin, his identity card shows a workplace, Kaplan et Zanin, that had gone out of business three years earlier. As far as his wife, Emilie Thouret, knew, he still worked there, and she insisted that the shoes and a tie he was wearing when he was killed "couldn't be his". It soon becomes evident that although he had a source of income, he spent most of his time sitting on a benc...
Maigret and the Millionaires
Maigret is called to the Hôtel George-V, where the English multimillionaire, Colonel David Ward, had been found drowned in his bathtub, the marks on his shoulders indicating a murder. The night before, the Countess Louise Paverini, a few doors down, had attempted suicide, and been taken to the American Hospital in Neuilly. The two had spent the evening together, and planned to get married once his divorce was finalized. His friend and associate, John Arn...
Maigret and the Minister
Auguste Point, the Minister of Public Works, calls Maigret at home, to ask that he come visit him personally — unofficially — on an extremely sensitive manner. Maigret learns that he had recently received a copy of the Calame report, the contents of which, if revealed, would no doubt cause a major scandal and shakeup of the government. But within a day of receiving it, it is stolen. The press soon learns, somehow, that he has received it, so if it doesn'...
Maigret and the Nahour Case
Maigret is woken by a call from his friend Dr. Pardon at 1:30 am, after they'd gone there for dinner on a freezing January night. Maigret went over, and Pardon told of a couple who'd appeared, the woman wounded in the back by a bullet. They'd disappeared after Pardon treated the wound, but without leaving any names, and after telling a fanciful story. Maigret learns the next day they'd departed from Orly for Amsterdam. He's called to the home of Félix Na...
Maigret and the Old Lady
Maigret is visited in his office by Valentine Besson, a lively old widow from Étretat, whose maid, Rose Trochu, has been poisoned — or at least she'd drunk poison that apparently was intended for Valentine. Valentine's step-son, Charles Besson has recently become a Deputy, and the Minister has asked the Chief to send Maigret. At Étretat Maigret is met by Inspector Castaing, of Le Havre, who was in charge of the case. So far nothing was clear, but Vale...
Maigret and the Reluctant Witnesses
While winding up the case of Grégoire Brau, the Canon, a burglar, a call comes in of a murder in the house of Lachaume's Biscuits, Quai de la Gare, Ivry, a brand which Maigret remembers from his childhood. The elder brother, Léonard Lachaume had been shot. The other members of the household claim to know nothing, have heard nothing. The Examining Magistrate, Angelot, one of the new breed, insists on staying for the interrogation, and taking charge of the...
Maigret and the Saturday Caller
Léonard Planchon follows Maigret home to tell him his story. He'd come to the Quai des Orfèvres numerous times on Saturdays, earning himself the nickname "the Saturday caller" but had always left before seeing Maigret. He's planning to kill his wife and her lover, Roger Prou, one of his workers who has moved into his house. Maigret convinces him to call him daily, and worries when he doesn't call. His wife and Prou maintain that he left home one night an...
Maigret and the Spinster
Maigret had been receiving regular visits from Miss Cécile Pardon, who claimed that someone was coming into her house at night and rearranging the furniture. It had become a joke at the Quai des Orfèvres. But this time when she came and left a message that "something terrible happened last night," she has disappeared by the time Maigret gets around to calling for her. Maigret goes to her house in Bourg-la-Reine, and discovers that her aunt, Mrs. Juliette...
Maigret and the Strangled Stripper
One day, a young girl named Arlette, a stripper at Picratt Club in Montmartre reports to the local police station that she has heard two men at her club talking about murdering a countess. Her deposition is taken at Quai des Orfevres but, as there was no crime commited, nobody takes her serious until she is found strangles in her room, a few hours later. The next day, Countess von Franheim, a drug addict is found dead. The stripper's identity could no...
Maigret and the Surly Inspector
While Maigret is visiting the Emergencies Room, chatting with his nephew Daniel, a call comes in from the 18th. Someone had broken an alarm box, shouted "Merde to the cops" and then a shot. Arriving at the scene they found the dead man, Michel Goldfinger, a diamond merchant with a heavy debt due the next day. And the inspector in charge, Lognon, the "Grouser". But something about the shouted message troubles Maigret, since it resembles the last words of ...
Maigret and the Wine Merchant
Maigret is interrogating Théo Stiernet, a young man who'd killed his own grandmother for a few francs, when a message comes in from the 17th that Oscar Chabut, a wealthy wine merchant, had been killed. Going to the scene, he recognizes the house in the Rue Fortuny, belonging to Mrs. Blanche, which Oscar Chabut was leaving when he was shot. Maigret finds Mrs. Blanche, and after a while Chabut's private secretary, Anne-Marie Boutin, the Grasshopper, with w...
Maigret at the Coroner's
Maigret is in Tucson, Arizona, on a study-tour of America, guided by his FBI friend Harry Cole, who leaves him one day to watch a coroner's inquest. Five young Air Force men, Sergeant Ward, Sergeant Dan Mullins, Corporal Jimmy Van Fleet, Sergeant Ted O'Neil, and Corporal Wo Lee had gone out drinking and driving one night with a young girl, Bessie Mitchell, whose body had been found the next morning on the tracks, run over by a train. Maigret becomes engr...
Maigret Goes to School
Joseph Gastin, a schoolmaster from Saint-André-sur-Mer, near La Rochelle, has been waiting for Maigret. The ex-postmistress of his little town, Léonie Birard, had been killed, shot in the eye with a 22 gun from some distance, as she looked out the window of her house. Gastin, regarded as an outsider in the village, is sure that he is regarded as the prime suspect. Maigret calls Lieutenant Daniélou and tells him he'll bring Gastin back, and learns from hi...
Maigret Has Doubts
Dining at the Pardons', Maigret tells the story of a case from a few years back, in which Adrien Josset was found guilty and executed for the murder of his wife, Christine Josset. She had been much wealthier than he, and had set him up in business. Maigret had had but one chance to interview him before the Examining Magistrate, Judge Coméliau, having decided he was guilty, took over the case. Josset claimed he found his wife in her room, stabbed many tim...
Maigret Has Scruples
Xavier Marton, the head of the toy department at the Grands Magasins du Louvre, a model train specialist, visits Maigret to say that he thinks his wife wants to poison him, but leaves while Maigret is out of the room. Later in the day the man's wife, Gisèle Marton, also visits Maigret, to tell her side of the story, which is that her husband is having delusions. Marton comes the next day, and agrees to have another examination with a psychiatrist. But he...
Maigret in Court
Maigret is in the Assize Court, waiting to testify in the trial of Gaston Meurant, picture framer, accused of killing his aunt, Léontine Faverges, for her money, and a 4-year-old girl, Cécile Perrin, who she was taking care of. The evidence had been inconclusive, and he was not a suspect until an anonymous phone call told of his blue suit in his closet, which was bloodstained. At the trial Maigret testifies that he'd continued the investigation "unoffici...
Maigret in Defensive
For the first time in his career, Maigret is summoned to the Chief Commissioner's office by a written summons. He has been accused by Nicole Prieur, 17-year-old niece of a high-ranking public official, of picking her up in a bar, getting her drunk, and taking her to a hotel room, where he undressed her, but "was unable to do anything." Maigret is forbidden to interview her or anyone regarding the case, and told that if offered, his resignation would be a...
Maigret in Exile
Maigret has been assigned to Luçon, in the Vendée, as a result of political problems in his department. He receives a call from Adine Hulot, reporting that she has seen a corpse on the floor of a bedroom at Judge Forlacroix's house in L'Aiguillon. Maigret goes there, a small village of mussel gatherers, and interrupts the Judge trying to drag the corpse out to dump in the sea. He says he has no idea who it is. The Judge's daughter, Lise Forlacroix, suffe...
Maigret in Retirement
Two years into his retirement at Meung-sur-Loire, Maigret has yet to be tempted to take on a case. But 82-year-old Bernadette Amorelle, the widow of Amorelle of “Amorelle and Campois”, the major gravel and barge company on the Seine, shows up at his door and virtually orders him to Orsennes, where her 18-year-old granddaughter, Monita Malik, has been found dead in the Seine. Maigret arrives and finds an old acquaintance from his days at lycée in Moulins,...
Maigret in Society
Maigret is requested by the Director to handle the murder of an ex-Foreign Ministry official, Comte Armand de Saint-Hilaire, who had retired 12 years earlier, found shot in his study, by his housekeeper of 42 years, Jaquette Larrieu. His death coincides with the funeral of Prince Hubert de Vth, of one of the great French familes. Prince Hubert's wife, Princess Isabelle de Vth, had been a lifelong friend of Saint-Hilaire's — they'd intended to marry, but ...
Maigret Loses His Temper
During a quiet spell in June, Maigret meets Lucas in the Brasserie Dauphine. He is with Antonio Farano, whose brother-in-law Émile Boulay, who owns night-clubs in Montmartre and on the Champs-Élysées, has disappeared. Two days later his body is found near Père Lachaise cemetery. He'd been strangled and kept somewhere for the two days. Boulay was a conscientious businessman, and there's no trace of enemies of the amateur type, who'd strangle and hold onto...
Maigret Returns
Maigret, in retirement in Meung, is awakened early one morning by his nephew, Philippe Lauer, Mrs. Maigrets's sister's son, from Alsace, whom he'd gotten into the Quai des Orfèvres. He'd been assigned by Inspector Amadieu, who'd taken Maigret's place when he retired, to watch Pepito Palestrino, proprietor of the Floria in the Rue Fontaine, who was to be arrested the next morning in connection with the knifing murder of Barnabé the week before. Philippe h...
Maigret Sets a Trap
A serial killer had been stalking Montmartre, with five women stabbed to death, one a month. So far there are no clues, and the district is in a state of siege. Maigret arranges an interview in his office that the journalists will take for the interrogation of a suspect, and by that means Maigret hopes to goad the killer into a new attack, as if to make him say "you've got the wrong man". In preparation Maigret has organized a massive and secret infiltra...
Maigret Takes a Room
Janvier is shot in the chest while keeping watch outside Miss Clément's boarding house waiting for the return of Emile Paulus, a young man who lived there, suspected of having robbed a bar. Maigret, his wife in Alsace caring for her sister, moves in the the house. He discovers Paulus hiding under Miss Clement's bed, but he appears to be unconnected to the shooting. A boarder, Miss Blanche Dubut, mentions to Maigret the occasional strange condition of the...
Maigret Takes the Waters
Dr. Pardon has suggested a vacation in Vichy, where Maigret can take the waters. At 53 he's in good shape, but in need of a break. Maigret and Mrs. Maigret quickly adjust to the Vichy routine, and start to recognize some of the others on their daily walks. Then the news breaks that one of the women they'd often noticed, Hélène Lange, has been strangled, not far from their hotel. Inspector Désiré Lecoeur, of Clermont-Ferrand, who had once been one of Maig...
Maigret's Boyhood Friend
A schoolmate of Maigret's from the Lycée Banville, Léon Florentin, whom he hadn't seen for 20 years since he'd met him by chance one day on the street, appears in Maigret's office. He'd been the class clown, a habitual liar. He tells Maigret that the woman he'd been living with, Joséphine Papet has been murdered. She had had five lovers, and eventually Maigret learns who they were. Victor Lamotte, a winegrower from Bordeaux, Fernand Courcel, a businessma...
Maigret's Christmas
It's Christmas morning, and Maigret is visited by two women from across the street, Mrs. Doncoeur and Loraine Martin. Mrs. Martin's 7-year-old niece, Colette Martin had told Mrs. Doncoeur she'd had a visit the night before from Father Christmas, who'd been in her room with a flashlight, and been making a hole in the floor, presumably to bring presents to the young child below. He'd given Colette a lovely doll, and had had a white beard and red clothes. M...
Maigret's Dead Man
A man calls and asks for Maigret, from a café and says he's being followed by someone trying to kill him. He says that Maigret knows his wife, Nine. Before he can finish he hangs up, calls back from another. He tries again from various cafés, till finally the calls stop. That night, his body is found in the Place de la Concorde, his face badly beaten, stabbed to death. Someone had seen it pushed out of a car. Although his picture is published, there is n...
Maigret's Failure
While Maigret is concerned with the disappearance of an English tourist, Muriel Britt, he is called into the Chief's office. The Minister of the Interior has requested that he take care of Ferdinand Fumal, a wealthy butcher who'd donated millions to the party funds. Maigret meets Fumal, only to realize that they'd gone to school together in Saint-Fiacre, that he'd disliked him, and that his father had hated Fumal's father as well. Fumal has apparently re...
Maigret's First Case
Maigret is secretary of the Saint-Georges Police Station under Superintendent Maxime Le Bret, the most worldly of all Paris superintendents. Late one night a young musician, Justin Minard dashes in. He'd seen a woman cry for help from a window on the Rue Chaptal, and heard a shot. He'd rushed to the door, but been thrown out by Louis Viaud, the butler. Checking his street guide, Maigret discovers it is the most prestigious house in the district, that of ...
Maigret's Little Joke
Dr. Pardon has convinced Maigret he needs a vacation, so Maigret decided to spend his two weeks off in Paris, enjoying himself with Mrs. Maigret and totally avoiding the Quai des Orfèvres, where he had left Les Sables-d'Olonne as his forwarding address. An interesting case has come up, with Janvier in charge, and Maigret follows through the newspapers. The nude body of a doctor's wife, Éveline Jave, was found in a cupboard in his office. Both were suppos...
Maigret's Mistake
Louise Filon is found shot in her apartment. She'd been known as Lulu when she'd been on the streets, but was now apparently being kept by someone. The cleaning woman, Désirée Brault, whom Maigret recognized from her many brushes with the law, said as little as possible. So did the concierge. Eventually Maigret learns of Lulu's boyfriend, a musician, Pierre Eyraud. He's gone into hiding, apparently on reading the news. Lulu had had a serious brain illnes...
Maigret's Pickpocket
Riding to work on an open bus, Maigret has his pocket picked, his wallet, including his badge, stolen. He'd seen the young man, but he couldn't give chase. The next day he receives his wallet and all the contents in the mail, and a few minutes later a phone call from the thief, François Ricain, who arranges to meet Maigret near his home. Ricain, terribly agitated, takes Maigret to his apartment on the Rue Saint-Charles, and shows Maigret the body of his ...
Maigret's Pipe
Someone has taken Maigret's favorite pipe, and he remembers that he'd left his office briefly while Mrs. Leroy and her son Joseph Leroy were there. The boy had done it! But the next morning Mrs. Leroy shows up again, to report, not that someone has been coming into the house in Charenton while she was out, as she had yesterday, but that Joseph has disappeared. Lucas tracks down Joseph's girlfriend, Mathilde, and a check on the people who had been lodgers...
Maigret's Revolver
A young man, Alain Lagrange, visits Maigret's apartment while he is out. He leaves before Maigret returns, taking the revolver Maigret had received as a gift from the FBI. That evening Maigret dines at the Pardons, where François Lagrange, Alain's father and an old schoolmate of Pardon's, had been expected, but didn't appear due to ill health. Pardon mentions Lagrange's son, which leads Maigret to visit Lagrange on the off chance that his son was the one...
Maigret's Rival
Maigret travels to the tiny town of Saint-Aubin-les-Marais, near Niort, in the Vendée, at the request of the Examining Magistrate Victor Bréjon. His brother-in-law, Étienne Naud had asked him for help, since after the death of a young man, Albert Retailleau, rumors had been flying that Naud was involved. Maigret is surprised to see Old Cadaver, Justin Cavre, who'd been on the force with Maigret for 20 years till forced to resign due to problems caused by...
My Friend Maigret
While Inspector Pyke of Scotland Yard is staying with Maigret to observe his methods, Maigret receives word of a murder in the Midi, on the island of Porquerolles, of Marcellin, a man who claims to have been Maigret's friend. Actually, he'd been a criminal whose girlfriend, Ginette, a prostitute, Maigret had helped to find a sanatarium years ago. Maigret and Pyke go to the island. Jojo, a maid at the hotel, mentions to Maigret that Marcellin had boasted ...
No Vacation for Maigret
Maigret is in Les Sables-d'Olonne, on vacation with Mrs. Maigret, but since the second day she's been in the hospital, recovering from an operation for acute appendicitis. Maigret has settled into a pleasant routine, touring the cafés at regular times, visiting his wife, watching a bridge game at the Brasserie de Remblai. He'd received an odd note about a patient at the hospital, apparently from one of the sisters, but before he'd had a chance to think ...
Stan the Killer
Maigret is on a stakeout at a café, the Tonnelet Bourguignon, in front of the Hôtel Beauséjour, Rue de Birague and Rue Saint-Antoine. The waiter is Janvier, and the old man on the second floor across the way is Lucas. They believe the Polish gang of Stan the Killer is holed up there, a gang which has committed brutal murder-robberies of isolated farms in the North. While Maigret is sitting, Michael Ozep, a Pole who'd been begging Maigret to let him help ...
The Crime at Lock 14
Maigret enters the world of canals and barges when a woman is found strangled in the stable at Lock 14 at Dizy. Who she was and how she could have gotten there are a total mystery until the arrival of Sir Walter Lampson's yacht, the Southern Cross, and her identity is revealed as Mary Lampson, his wife. But her real name is unknown. Traces of tar and horse hair are found on her body, and suspicion falls on the barge Providence, which had been at Dizy the...
The Crime of Inspector Maigret
Maigret followed a seedy-looking man to a low-class hotel in Bremen after he saw him in Brussels wrapping up a package of 30,000 francs and sending it as printed matter. The man had bought a cheap suitcase, and Maigret, on a whim, had bought a similar one, exchanging his with the man's when he had a chance. Watching through a keyhole Maigret sees the man open the suitcase and find it empty. He immediately pulls out a gun and kills himself. The suitcase h...
The Crossroad Murders
For 17 hours Inspector Maigret and Lucas have interrogated Carl Anderson, but he is unperturbed, and sticks to his story. He lives near Arpajon with his sister Else Anderson, at the Three Widows Crossroads. His neighbor, Émile Michonnet's new car has been found in Anderson's garage with a dead man, Isaac Goldberg, a diamond merchant of Antwerp, at the wheel. Anderson's old car was found in Michonnet's garage. Maigret goes to the crossroads with Lucas, an...
The Death of Monsieur Gallet
Émile Gallet, apparently a commercial traveler, had been found dead in a hotel room in Sancerre. But actually for 18 years, unknown to his wife, he had been bilking money from Royalists as Mr. Clément, using the subscription lists from his wife's father's Royalist newspaper, Le Soleil to find his sources. Maigret discovers that he had been to see the owner of the neighboring estate, Tiburce de Saint-Hilaire, apparently attempting to raise 20,000 francs h...
The Evidence of the Altar Boy
When commissar Maigret is sent to a provincial town for six month in order to reorganize their Flying Squad he has to handle a strange case where different witnesses, all of the having the highest credibility, testify in different ways. Justin, a 12 year-old altar-boy reports that he has seen a dead body in the Rue Sainte Catherine on his way at the morning mass to the hospital. But, the body has disappeared without a trace. At the same time the Judge i...
The Group at the Grand-Café
Maigret, in retirement at Meung-sur-Loire, has taken to spending his days playing manille at the Grand Café, where he has become one of the regulars. The other players sometimes vary, including Hubert, the butcher, whose shop is across the way, Urbain, the veterinarian mayor, Citroën, the mechanic, the blacksmith, and sometimes the café owner played as well. One evening, after the game, the news came in that the butcher had been killed. He'd had a lot of...
The Inn of the Drowned
Maigret was in Nemours to take care of some business with Captain Pillement of the gendermerie, when a call came in that a car had gone into the Loing between Nemours and Montargis, near an inn, Auberge des Pêcheurs, called L'Auberge aux Noyés, the Drowned Men's Inn, because of the number of drownings there. A truck driver, Joseph Lecoin, said he'd run into a car parked on the roadside and pushed it into the river, after which he'd heard shouts for help....
The Lock at Charenton
Maigret is called to Charenton, Lock No. 1, where the owner of barges and quarries, Émile Ducrau had been stabbed and thrown into the canal, but without being killed. Maigret goes to his house, and finds he is someone Maigret likes. Ducrau offers 20,000 francs for the solution to the crime. Maigret meets his wife, hears about his son, and Gassin, his old buddy, who runs his barge the Golden Fleece with his retarded daughter, Aline Gassin. Maigret has see...
The Madman of Bergerac
Maigret is taking a trip to Villefranche-en-Dordogne, to visit his old friend Leduc. At the same time he can go to Bordeaux, and take care of some business. Mrs. Maigret is in Alsace, where her sister is having her third baby. Maigret takes the bottom bed in a 2nd class sleeping car, but is kept awake but the man above. In the morning the man gets up to go, and Maigret notices he's about to jump off the train. Without thinking, Maigret follows, also jump...
The Man on the Run
The body of Ernest Borms, a Viennese doctor, is found on the walks of the Bois de Boulogne, not far from the Porte de Bagatelle. He'd been shot, but there isn't a clue. Maigret has an article inserted into the papers that the murder had been quickly solved and that there would be a reenactment of the crime the next morning. The people who show up at the reenactment are followed, and one seems a likely subject. He leads Maigret and his investigators on a ...
The Most Obstinate Man in Paris
A quiet, unobtrusive man, Raymond Auger, has spent the entire day, 16 hours, sitting in the Café des Ministères, on the corner of the Boulevard Saint-Germain and Rue des Saints-Pères. Joseph, the waiter, had gotten so upset that he'd even called Janvier, to whose sister-in-law he was married, to come and check him out. When he finally left, a few seconds later a shot rang out, and a man was found dead outside the café... but it wasn't him. Maigret starts...
The Mysterious Affair in the Boulevard Beaumarchais
One day, commissar Maigret is called to investigate a pretty strange death. Louise Voivin was found poisoned in her apartment in the Boulevard Beaumarchais, with a dose of digitalis. Maigret interrogates Ferdinand Voivin the husband of the victim who is 37 years old and a gem dealer and Nicole Lamure, 18 years old the sister of the deceased, who has been living with them. The poison was found in the house in a packet marked “bicarbonate of soda”. Both N...
The Old Lady of Bayeux
While in Caen reorganizing the Flying Squad Maigret is visited by Cécile Ledru, 28, who said her "aunt", Joséphine Crozier of Bayeux, had died at her nephew's house, Philippe Deligeard of Caen, supposedly of a heart attack. The old woman, Joséphine Crozier, had actually taken Cécile as her companion after having her educated. The young woman said her aunt had said if she ever died in her nephew's house there should be an investigation. Philippe Deligeard...
The Patience of Maigret
Only 10 days after the arrest of the dentist in the Rue des Acacias, Maigret finds himself there again, this time investigating the murder of Manuel Palmari, a criminal Maigret had known for 20 years, and who he suspected to be behind the string of jewel robberies over that period. Palmari's mistress Aline was out shopping at the time, with a police tail. Maigret interviews almost all the tenants of the building, then goes to the Palmari's Clou Doré rest...
The Sailor's Rendezvous
Preparing to leave for their annual vacation in Alsace, Maigret gets a letter from an old school friend, Jorissen, who'd become a teacher in Quimper. A former student of his, Pierre Le Clinche, had sailed as a radio operator out of Fécamp on the trawler Océan. When they'd returned to port, the captain, Octave Fallut had been killed, and Le Clinche was being held. Maigret convinces his wife that they should take their holiday in Fécamp, where he can unoff...
The Secrets of the O Agency
One day, Torrence, a former inspector of the Police Judiciaire, now owner of a private investigation agency, receives a strange phone call from one of his clients, the well kown sculptor T. The latter wants to meet him at the bar called “the Meeting of the Limousines” and asks him to bring the documents given to Torrence a few days ago. When he arrives there, T gives him an envelope and Janvier, his ex-colleague arrests him and takes him to Quai des Orf...
The Shadow in the Courtyard
Maigret is called to the Place des Vosges, where the owner of a drug company, Raymond Couchet, has been found shot to death, seated at his desk. Behind him, the empty safe, unlocked, but unreachable with him in his chair. Maigret wonders if the robbery and murder were two separate crimes. He soon becomes convinced that the answer lies among the residents of the block of apartments. Couchet's former wife, Juliette Martin and her husband live across the sq...
The Strange Case of Peter the Lett
Maigret is alerted by Interpol to the iminent arrival of Pietr the Lett, international criminal. Armed with a detailed description, he goes to the Gare du Nord to meet the train, and sees Pietr depart for the Majestic Hotel. But almost immediately a body is discovered in the toilet of the car he had ridden in, of a man who also appears to fit the description. In the pocket of the dead man is an envelope containing a lock of hair, and the police lab is ab...
Two Bodies on a Barge
Commissar Maigret is called to the lock at Le Coudray, where a barge, the Astrolabe, cut loose, has drifted. On the board there were three dead bodies: an old Alsacian dog, Claessens, the skipper, Arthur Aerts, hanged with his dog's chain and his wife, Emma Aerts, hanged with a bedsheet. Everyone believes that the murderer is Emile Gradut, the stoker of the Aiglon VII, who was known as Emma's “boyfriend” and who had disappeared. Later, he was captured in...