Hallelujah! Picador has decided to reissue all 75 novels featuring Inspector Jules Maigret, the ever wise and deeply empathetic Paris detective that George Simenon created in 1931 and whose last appearance was in 1972. Did we mention Maigret is also apparently ageless? Not all the books have always been in print in English, and he has been played on-screen by so many different actors (Michael Gambon, Rowan Atkinson, Rupert Davies, Richard Harris, Bruno Cremer, among others) that it is best to create your own image of the man from reading the novels. Imagine a large, stocky fellow, fond of his pipe, wearing a bowler hat and an overcoat with a velvet collar. He is devoted to his wife, childless, and always has time for a restorative drink.
The books will be published more or less in their original order over the course of the next three years, with the first three (Pietr the Latvian,The Late Monsieur Gallet, and The Hanged Man of Saint-Pholien) available in early May. To read Simenon is to peer not just into the Inspector’s brain but into the human heart in all its capabilities.
Jim Kelly is the Books Editor at AIR MAIl. He can be reached at jkelly@airmail.news
