Another detective who uses his powers of deduction to solve cases, however unlike Hercules, he is not boastful nor egocentric. He is a warm man (I learned this in the first story when he agrees to "foster" a young child caught up in a crime in order to make his wife happy), his stories follow his progress from step one until the end, he is meticulous in his descriptions, there is no desire to subterfuge the reader into making false assessments, and the Paris & other areas in which he works are filled w/ real people.

It has taken me over 30 years to read a Maigret book..... I thoroughly enjoyed the stories, they were interesting, filled w/ human characterization, and easy to read. I even figured out "who done it" in three of the stories..... I will definitely be reading more of the series and I might look into adding replacement copies to the Library's holdings.

Unfortunately for me, this was on my list for the Christmas portion of the Fall Flurry Challenge.... but as it is due back in 2 weeks, I decided to read it now. ( )