Maigret's Pipe: Seventeen Stories (A Harvest Book)

By Georges Simenon

Book Overview

Seventeen stories feature Simenon's dauntless detective as he works on some baffling cases both from his base--Paris police headquarters on the Quai des Ortevres--and throughout the provinces. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0156551462
• ISBN13: 9780156551465
• Release Date: January 1994
• Publisher: Harvest Books
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.3" x 0.8" x 5.5"

Customer Reviews

Delightfully quirky

Several Maigret mysteries by Georges Simenon appeared a few years ago on PBS's Mystery. Played by Michael Gambon, the Paris detective seemed quirky and brilliant, sort of a mix between Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot, with a bit of heartlessness mixed in. This collection of stories featuring Maigret are delightful with a sort of gentleness that does not fit into today's world. Taking place in the 1940s, the 17 stories bespeak of a time most of us are unfamiliar with, and a very French time at that. Maigret is very politically incorrect by today's standards. He smokes a pipe constantly (the theft of which is the subject of one of the stories). He isn't averse to hitting a suspect, or grilling another for half a day or more (as with the young woman from the Etoile du Nord). Murder is at the center of the cases, sometimes grisly (drowning, hanging, knifing), but never just blood and gore. Maigret is moody and sometimes gets very angry. His ego can be bruised, as when his wife gets a bit ahead of him (in "Madame Maigret's Admirer)." Maigret might even rest in the victim's bed (Two Bodies on a Barge). The collection includes a couple of novellas, but most are short stories and all are quickly read. You come away from Simenon's world feeling that if you were in trouble, you'd want Maigret on your side.