"He was wearing a dark suit, a beige raincoat and on his feet, which were twisted at an odd angle, he wore yellow-brown shoes, which seemed out of keeping with a day as colourless as this. Apart from his shoes he looked so ordinary that he would have passed completely unnoticed on the street or on one of the numerous cafU terraces on the boulevard. When Maigret discovers an unexpectedly flamboyant detail about an otherwise unremarkable man, the inspector...

While committing what he intends to be his last burglary, "Sad Freddie" discovers something completely out of his line: the body of a dead woman, her chest covered in blood, holding a telephone in her hand. Inspector Maigret is called in to solve the crime, and after an exhaustive search, a psychological duel, a marathon interrogation, and innumerable glasses of Pernod, wine, cold beer, and brandy--a sure sign that this is no easy case--the famous...

"A woman and her child have been brutally murdered in their flat: the woman's throat slit, and the child smothered by silk cushions. Standing accused is the victim's nephew, a quiet picture-framer from the outskirts of Paris. The violence of the crime stands in stark contrast to his gentle nature, but Meurant was glimpsed fleeing from the scene, and a suit is found bearing traces of human blood. Yet Maigret can't reconcile the violent portrait the...

In this make-believe memoir, Maigret recounts a meeting with the author himself. The account starts with the arrival of Georges Sim, as he is called here, at the Paris Police Judiciaire to soak up atmosphere for his crime novels by dogging the footsteps of Inspector Maigret. The detective is irritated by the audacious young writer who names a character after him and argues that he oversimplifies, in his fiction, the intricate duties of the police...