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A collection of five full-length Maigret mysteries from the 1950s, the first three written whilst Simenon was living in Connecticut. Maigret in Montmartre (1951) and Maigret's Mistake (1953) were originally coupled under the title Maigret Right and Wrong. The other three are Maigret Goes to School (1954), Maigret has Scruples (1958), and Maigret and the Reluctant Witnesses (1959). "We see the redoubtable detective investigating a killing in one of the many striptease clubs which Montmartre boasts, involved in the case of a murdered demi-mondaine and a distinguished doctor, fighting the prejudice of a close-knit community against their schoolmaster, caught up in the curious case of the electric trains salesman who suspects his wife of trying to murder him, and finally groping his way towards a solution in a decrepit mansion by the Seine, where the head of an almost bankrupt biscuit-manufacturing business has been found shot dead. In all these five stories the tension is acute, the psychology brilliant and the atmosphere superb."
Translated by Daphne Woodward, Alan Hodge, and Robert Eglesfield.
Price: 27.75 USD

Most likely a book club edition, although not stated, this volume contains three Inspector Maigret mysteries originally published between 1956 - 1961. This book is a good way to get a big dose of this popular French detective.
Maigret's Failure - "The vulgarly rich owner of a chain of butcher shops, 'The King of the Meat Trade', is murdered for motives both understandable and obvious.
Maigret in Society - "The inspector confronts a cast of characters so subtle and overbred as to seem unreal.
Maigret and the Lazy Burglar - "A risky profession is exercised by an eminently cautious man."
Translated by Daphne Woodward and Robert Eglesfield.
Price: 7.45 USD

"The burglar's wife reported her husband had seen Maria lying dead, in a pool of her own blood. But why had the burglar skipped town? And why did Maria's prosperous dentist husband and aristocratic mother-in-law insist Maria had left Paris of her own free will?
Here was a caper to baffle even the master sleuth. A case with too many clues -- and no crime. A killing with too many suspects -- and no corpse. Before Maigret got to the bottom of things, he would be thrust deep into a whirlpool of twisted passion and dangerous emotion -- where evey smile masked hate . . . and every corner turned could lead to murder . . ."
Price: 9.90 USD

"Simenon's mother, over ninety, lies dying. Her son visits her daily at the hospital while she slowly and peacefully drifts away from life. Watching her, he attempts to get at the truth of her life and of the nature of their bond. Telling incidents are fitted together like so many pieces in a puzzle, and as they link into a pattern Simenon sums up for himself his mother's character, her fate, and their mutual relationship. Under her son's impassioned scrutiny Madame Simenon Mère, even as she is dying, becomes again by magical re-creation a living child, girl, wife, mother. "
Translated by Ralph Manheim
Price: 9.95 USD

"At first no sense could be seen in someone trying to slay the harmless, nameless old derelict. But Maigret soon learned that appearances were totally deceiving as he began to uncover the secret life of a victim who refused to divulge his past, and as the great detective came ever closer to discovering the identity of a killer who struck seemingly without reason or remorse. Never had the unflappable Maigret run into such a series of surprises. Never had a case combined so deathly silent a surface with such startling human depths. . ."
Translated by Jean Stewart.
Price: 3.95 USD

"Snared in the propeller of a barge was a man's arm -- drained white, and limp as a dead fish from prolonged immersion in the murky canal. It was a singularly challenging case for Chief Inspector Maigret, as piece by gruesome piece the corpse of a man was assembled from the muddy canal bottom -- all except the head.
His imperturbable detective's logic thoroughly aroused, Maigret searched the squalid bistros and byways of Paris for four necessary items: the corpse's missing head, the identity of the body, the murderer, and -- most elusive of all -- the motive. It was a case which would require Maigret's keenest eye for minute detail . . . and his most profound psychological insights."
Price: 9.95 USD

"This is a very special case in Maigret's experince, in which he invests his heart as much as his ingenuity. A nice old lady, meticulously groomed and showing no signs of derangement, timidly tries to see the famous detective and finally accosts him in the street. She is frightened: someone invades her apartment during her absences. Nothing is missing. But, says she, there are minute changes in the positions of objects, which to her prove the presence of an intruder. Maigret's subordinates shrug her off as a lunatic, and she becomes known at Police Headquarters as Maigret's Madwoman. But Maigret is touched by the look in her eyes and promises to go and see her. Someone else, however, gets there ahead of him.
Translator: Eileen Ellenbogen.
Price: 6.95 USD

"A man has been stabbed in a blind alley. It appears a humdrum crime, the result of a drunken brawl. But it is Monday and such stabbings rarely occur on Mondays, and Maigret is struck by one salient fact: all who knew the dead man saw him sitting on one of the Paris boulevard benches. As Simenon readers kinow, the true culprit may not be the murderer but often is some innocent who provoked the situation. This crime story is also a story of marriage between a peace-loving man and a hard, despotic woman. Cowardice leads to deceit, to benchsitting, and finally to the ultimate nightmare."
Translated by Eileen Ellenbogen.
Price: 7.50 USD

Translated by Eileen Ellenbogen
"For six months a plain young woman had been pestering Maigret with the complain that the furniture in her apartment, shared with an aunt, mysteriously shifted position at night. Everyone at police headquarters was convinced it was all imagination, and they teased Maigret about his 'girl friend.' Her endless patience got on his nerves, and even her spinsterish look irritated him. No wonder he put off seeing her on a particularly busy day. It was a postponement he came to regret.
As Maigret endeavors to solve a case in which he considers himself guilty, he must reconstruct events that have gathered dust for years, wade through interrogations of witnesses who want to mislead him, and try to get inside the mind of a greedy, mistrustful old woman."
Price: 5.25 USD

During a final visit to the cell of condemned man Jean Lenoir, Inspector Maigret picks up a negligently dropped remark about an unsolved - in fact, unreported - murder committed in Paris six years before. It seems Lenoir and his partner, Victor, witnessed the dumping of a lifeless body in the Canal Saint-Martin and used the information to blackmail the murdered. But eventually their victim squirmed away and wasn't seen again until one evening at the Guiguette a Deuz Sous, a tavern by the Seine. With such meager clues, even Maigret is nearly at a loss over where to begin an investigation, but patience, as always, comes to the rescue."
Price: 4.75 USD