A veritable pipeful of Maigret and the serpentine meanderings of his mind. Excellent!

Originally published under the moniker 'Maigret's Pipe - Seventeen Stories' here we have seventeen short stories featuring, Maigret and his faithful companion, the pipe. They are stories with a a tangle of facts and clues and we are once again left in awe of how he is able to piece together the pieces and show us the final picture.

Everyone who knows Maigret knows that his pipe is an essential part of his thought process. He uses it like the ritual tea ceremony, it's a ritual he wants and a ritual we have come to expect and want as well.

An ARC kindly provided by publishers via Netgalley.

Short stories when part of a series, by their nature assume an element of accepted knowledge. This is very much the case with these Maigret short stories; I am a Simenon fan and so lapped them up (just have to keep reminding myself that this is not a novel and so rushing to get to the end in as few sittings a possible is not the way these stories were ‘designed’ to be read).

This isn't a bad book from which to start your Maigret journey, but if it is the first Maigret book you are planning to read, I would consider leaving it until you have read a couple of the novels first and developed a little Maigret background knowledge.

However, ‘The New Investigations of Inspector Maigret’ is definitely worth the purchase as there are some gems here, not least ‘Madame Maigret’s Suitor’ and ‘The Inn of the Drowned’, a couple of the slightly longer stories in this collection.

Another beautifully presented, newly translated version of a classic Maigret publication.

As is often the case with these sort of collections, the stories in The New Investigations of Inspector Maigret are of variable quality, with some real gems, but also a few lesser tales, but overall, the standard is fairly high. It’s maybe not the best place to start if you are new to Simenon’s Parisian policeman, but existing fans will find plenty to enjoy here.

The New Investigations of Inspector Maigret is a collection of seventeen short stories featuring the iconic Maigret that has been previously published in 1994 as Maigret’s Pipe. This edition is translated by Howard Curtis and Ros Schwartz.

It takes a night wielding a pickaxe for DCI Maigret to solve the mystery of an unhappy couple hanged on a barge on the Seine.
Hours of intense interrogation of the sister and the husband are needed before Maigret solves the mysterious poisoning death at Boulevard Beaumarch: murder by intent but not by commission.
Maigret takes two inspectors along to arrest a crooked businessman who apparently shoots himself in the temple as they wait: Maigret is not convinced.

Maigret sets out to investigate the unusual death of a Breton maid, in service to a doctor accused by her parents. The doctor, it seems, has already carried out a thorough investigation: his story is so seemingly far-fetched, Maigret ha to check every aspect.
An early-hours call from his nephew sends Maigret to the Belgian border train station, where Inspector Paul Vinchan is holding back a carriage of the Berlin train and five passengers. Paul hopes that his uncle will examine the scene and interrogate the passengers to solve the murder of the sixth passenger.
Maigret follows a young couple to Brussels, shadowing them closely, obviously. The man is suspected of murdering his uncle. His persistence gets not quite the desired, but at least a satisfactory result.

A man accused of killing his mother and stabbing his aunt sees Maigret taking a long journey to a tiny remote village in the forest of Orleans to investigate. His thorough examination of the scene reveals the truth of the matter.
An early-morning phone tip-off sends Maigret to a restaurant in Rue Pigalle, where a criminal has holed up overnight trying to avoid his opposition waiting across the road for his departure. Weapons are confiscated, a removals truck yields a body in a trunk, and an arrest is made.
Maigret is convinced that the sleazy owner of the Special Bookshop on Rue Saint-Denis killed his pretty assistant. But he is wrong. The owner is still enough of a creep to tempt Maigret’s fist, though.

From her window Henriette Maigret observes a stranger of old-fashioned manner and garb who takes a daily stroll in the gardens and occupies a seat for some hours. Maigret jokingly refers to him as her suitor, but Henriette wonders if he is spying on someone. Then, as an unwitting witness to a crime and, later, a covert investigator, Mme Maigret endures her husband in full investigative mode. It seems Mme Maigret might make a good detective.

In Caen, a young woman asks Maigret to look into the death of her patroness, apparently by heart attack: she is certain the woman’s greedy nephew murdered her. His story seems plausible, though, so someone is lying, and Maigret’s thorough investigation reveals exactly who.
In Nemours on a minor case, Maigret is dragged into the intriguing case of a car in the river Loing. A lorry collides with an unlit car in heavy rain. The occupants, an eloping Parisian couple, are missing, but there’s a body, quite definitely murdered, in the boot.
In the Rue de Birague, Maigret and his team are staking out the seedy Hotel Beausejour, where they believe a ruthless gang of murdering Polish thieves are holed up. Meanwhile, an immigrant Polish gym teacher with an apparent death wish is being a real nuisance.

Just two days before he is due to retire, Maigret spends hours grilling a young woman who is the most likely suspect for the stabbing murder of a travelling salesman at the Etoile du Nord hotel. His intentions, though, are not what his colleagues expect.
Three months retired, the Maigrets’ London trip is delayed by weather, and they are stuck in a Dieppe boarding house when the maid is shot dead in a nearby alley. Maigret is dismayed to find he makes a poor witness and, when invited to sit in on interrogations, finds it hard to maintain silence.
A letter summons Maigret to Paris from his retirement home in Meung sur Loire. A young relative of a late colleague fears for her life from a boyfriend who turns out to be a petty criminal. But is she genuine?

Maigret is not pleased to be disturbed in the garden of his cottage on the Loire by a notary from Chateauneuf who just about railroads him into discovering if his prospective son-in-law is responsible for the theft of his valuable ivory pieces, an exercise which will require assuming a false identity.
This is a collection of tales of varying lengths, a series of enjoyable small doses of the inimitable DCI Maigret.
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Penguin Press UK.

Loyal fans of Georges Simenon know he was incredibly prolific, writing hundreds of novels, numerous short stories, using at least twenty-four different names. This new collection of stories from Penguin Classics includes many Maigret investigations written while Simenon was at the height of his creative genius in the late 1930s.
I particularly loved 'Madame Maigret's Suitor' with it's rare intimate moments of husband and wife seeing eye-to-eye; 'The Old Lady From Bayeux' has always been a particular favourite of mine; and 'Candle Wax' is one of the darkest Maigret stories.
This collection works for anyone who is new to Maigret's world or a source of delight for old fans like myself.

I like Maigret very much, but I found this collection rather unsatisfactory.

For me, Maigret doesn’t lend himself to the short story form. The novels are commendably brief, but they have the scope for Simenon to do what he does best: to build both an enveloping atmosphere and sense of place, and to paint some shrewd character portraits. The mysteries themselves are well done, but they aren’t the main point of the novels; in a short story that’s pretty well all we get, of course, and their tricky-puzzle-and-almost-instant-brilliant-solution structure left me rather cold.

These new translations aren’t bad, but they aren’t as lucid as most of those in this series and overall I found the collection disappointing. I am currently gradually reading the whole Maigret canon from the beginning with great pleasure, but I can’t really recommend this.

I would like to thank Netgalley and Penguin Press UK for an advance copy of The New Investigations of Inspector Maigret, a collection of seventeen freshly translated short stories featuring the eponymous Paris based detective.

I have only read thirteen of the stories as the copy I was given excludes the final four. I can only assume that they will follow the same kind of format which is basically a puzzling scenario that seems to defy explanation, Maigret asks apparently random questions and produces a solution that makes convoluted sense.

I enjoyed these stories as they are a short bite of lateral thinking. I probably got closest to guessing a bit of one in Madame Maigret’s Suitor, but it was a mere nibble round the edge. Otherwise I was mostly stumped. I obviously do not know people as well as Maigret does, because he is one of the first detectives to use psychology to solve his crimes - the stories are often about motive and more often than not about greed.

If the puzzles don’t grab you as a reader, the atmosphere will. They are set in a world that no longer exists, where men still wear hats, detectives drink on duty and there is no safety net against abject poverty. It is so well evoked I could imagine it vividly.

The New Investigations of Inspector Maigret is a good read that I can recommend.

Previously published as Maigret's Pipe, this is a new translation which has 17! yes I said 17 short stories featuring Maigret and of course Lucas, Janvier and Madame Maigret. This is a great collection for fans of Simenon and is an absolute joy to read, there isn't one weak link in the collection, each story keeps the reader engaged and fascinated. One small point a Maigret novel runs at around 192 pages however this fabulous treasure trove is 512 pages so you get to spend more time with your favourite French detective.

I can’t wait for this modern translation of some familiar and previously unread Maigret short stories.
Fortunately, Penguin through NetGalley afforded me an opportunity to read and ARC which contained all but four of these seventeen episodes.
I own and have read each Maigret novel as they were re-published, one a month, in their original publication order. Now Penguin are doing the same with his short stories and Georges Simenon’s wider works.
I have grown to enjoy these books afresh, having always been a fan. Historically readers were limited to books recently printed or the secondhand market.
To task translators to review the original texts has been a treat labour of love.
So here we have in brief mysteries the very essence of a policeman’s approach to crime, criminals and the French system of class. It is Maigret’s openness to a wider society and experiences throughout his career that shines out.

In the The hanged couple the detective is back among a familiar backdrop of canal life. “Only, Maigret wanted - how to put it? - he wanted to get to the point where he was ‘thinking barge’, in other words, thinking like these people.”

The Boulevard Beaumarchais Case is a fine example of his long interrogations, revealing how Maigret gets to the truth with the help of beer and sandwiches from La Brasserie Dauphine.

In ‘Death Penalty’ we see another of Maigret’s traits - a gut feeling, the Copper’s hunch. “The truth was, Maigret knew nothing! Maigret ‘felt’.
Maigret was sure he was right…………..Intuition isn’t enough. Nor is belief. The law requires proof…….

Rue Pigalle demonstrates Maigret’s knowledge of the criminal underclass.

In “ The Inn of the Drowned “ we see a fine example of Maigret’s skill at interviewing everyday people and discerning the truth from a web of lies.

Stan the Killer has the whole gang in an undercover operation; a stakeout with comic roles but a serious end in mind.

All together you feel the weather and discern Maigret’s mood, often sour and dark until he begins to make sense of an impenetrable mystery.

A great book to give to the lover of crime fiction and quality literature as it will open up a whole library into the world of Chief Inspector Maigret.

Atmospheric, Keenly Observed,,,
A new and most excellent translation of this group of short stories featuring the enigmatic and unequalled Inspector Maigret. Seventeen tales of crime and corruption, demonstrating the darkness of the human condition and psyche, all at once atmospheric and keenly observed. (Published in a previous translation as Maigret’s Pipe)

I normally don't chose crime novels as my first choice read, but I believe that Georges Simenon is by far the best author of this genre.

Again I prefer the full length novels to these selection of stories.

However, having said all of the above I thoroughly enjoyed this selection. Fantastic!

The translation stands out, because it is difficult to tell that the stories were not written in English.

A great selection of stories, all well written, brilliant classic detective work.

A very well done and thanks to the author, translator and Publisher for another brilliant Simenon work.

Thanks to the author and the publisher for an advanced copy for an honest review.