Inspector Maigret has become an old friend as Georges Simenon gives him to me in book after book. Maigret solves crimes both high and low in a moody Paris, where we always know how the weather is doing and what there is to eat. In Maigret’s Memoirs, the French detective himself takes over the writing to tell us how he met Simenon and of their evolution as author and subject. We learn about Maigret’s early life and how he met Madame Maigret. In the end, he and Madame Maigret fuss over some of the details that Simenon got wrong. Still, his wife says, “I don’t see all that much sifference… between what you say about yourself and what Simenon says about you.” There is no mystery here and the story seems a bit flabby as a result.
