Inspector Maigret Books In Order

Publication Order of Inspector Maigret Books

Publication Order of Inspector Maigret Short Story Collections

Jules Maigret or better yet known as Inspector Maigret is brought out as one of the best detectives that France has ever seen. This fictitious character created by Georges Simenon covers a carrier in law enforcement that spans a period of close to forty years. The series has over seventy published books and this ultimately resulted into numerous TV adaptations as a result of the success that was attributed to the books.

Jules has been portrayed on TV in Irish, Dutch, British, German, Japanese, French, Italian, Russian and Austrian media. Despite the numerous actors that played this character, Italian Gino Cervi is described by Georges Simenon as the best interpretation of the character in a series that ran in Italian media from 1964 to 1972. Maigret is introduced into the world of crime fighting by an old aquintance that goes by the name of Jacquemain who at the time is a detective inspector working at Quai des Orfévres. This character is seen as Avery big influence in Maigret’s career as a policeman until his demise three years later into the books in a street brawl where he dies as a result of a stray bullet. Because of his educational background, which is actually better than most officers on the force, Maigret is promoted from a uniformed to a plains clothes officer in no time and is taken under the wing of a high ranking police officer by the name of Xavier Guichard who was also a friend to Maigret’s late father.

It is described that his salary as he starts out is meager and he has to live in a squalid one room apartment but when he meets Louise, they move in together after marrying to a flat. Being a member of the public highways squad wing of the police force, Maigret gets to know most of Paris’s streets like the back of his hand and gets to learn a lot about the criminals that mostly spend the night in holding cells of the police station. He gets to learn how they operate and function and this is where he gets his excellent detective skills that are later on in the series put into practice.

Jules Maigret finally works his way up by being promoted to detective and slowly rising in the ranks to commissioner. When he is transferred to the Homicide squad as a detective, he becomes the best member of this squad and is highly respected by his colleagues. He always delves in to each case with curiosity that ultimately leads him to the cracking each case that he is involved in. His extraordinary sense of patience is what is admirable about Jule Maigret and this is primarily the reason he cracks many cases. His ability to enter into the world of how the criminals, victims as well as witnesses way of honking, is what makes Jules the best in his squad. Maigret is described as very dedicated to his work that he sometimes in the books has no time for his wife or personal life. Though Louise, Jules’s wife is painted as a very loving, caring and understanding character and offers her support for her husband at the amazing job he does of keeping bad guys out of the streets of Paris.
Maigret loves to eat a lot and occasionally drinks a glass of white wine in numerous books as he scouts his prey. His intuitive nature that allows him to adopt the way of life, the habits and the thinking of the criminals is seen as pretty advanced for the time of Jules. Though Jules is a medical graduate student having only been convinced to join the force by his friend. He has surbodnate staff that help him around with his work notably a young inspector who is the prapjologist in the squad. He specializes in bringing to life the suspects through the clues that are found and he is the one that encourages Jules to pursue his suspects in that manner that he does. He also seeks medical advice from his private physician on a case that involves any medical insight into it. Dr. Pardor is a close friend as well as private physician to the Margret’s and often dines with them in their residence.

Despite his level of education, Jules’s stature and physic wouldn’t strike you as someone intelligent. He is even described as a sort of leery kind of looking character. His surbodinate staff love him and look upto him as regards his excellence and brilliance at his work, inspector Lucas is seen as one who litteraly worships the ground Jules walks on. Jules travels extensively across France during his work because of cases and in some books, he even goes to Germany and as far as the united States in pursuit of a suspect. This displays a level of commitment to his work that is associated with Jules Maigret. Jules doesn’t have kids with his wife though but they have a nephew in the force by the name Phillipe Laeur who is really close to the family.

The first publication involving Jules Maigret was in 1931 titled The Strange Case Of Peter The Lett (This is an English translation frm the original French) and the last one was Maigret and Monsiur Gorles which was published in February of 1972 shortly before Georges Simenon’s death. The series was even made to a audio series on BBC back in 2002 that was also very successful. Georges Simenon is seen as one of the best writers of his time as well as the present day writers of crime fiction work. His work has been compared to that of Sherlock Holmes, with analysts saying that it’s just a little better. With over a 1000 publications to his name on the Jules Maigret series alone, this is simply the best works that you will ever get to read. Once you open the first chapter of this novels, you will be engrossed in the life and happenings of Inspector Maigret from page one upto the last book. So, if you are a fan of crime novels and haven’t read this, please do.