Maigret's Memoirs

One day Maigret's chief asks him to show a cocky young man named Georges Sim around the office. Next it seems Sim wants to write novels based on Maigret. The chief gets Maigret to go along with it for the sake of the force. Most people mistrust or ridicule the police. Sims will show them the police in their true light. And so Maigret becomes a character in fiction, much to his discomfort. Sims, who emerges gradually as Simenon, has managed to charm Madame Maigret and get her support. But the fictional Maigret continues to be a distortion of the real Maigret, and now, with these memoirs, Maigret intends to set things straight and correct Simenon's many errors and inaccuracies. Maigret describes his childhood years in the country, his early medical studies and his apprenticeship with the police. Try as he might to distinguish himself from the famous fictional detective, Maigret the self-effacing memoir writer still sounds very much like Simenon's Maigret. Maigret's description of the symbiotic relationship between policemen and the underworld is particularly fascinating. And the story of the courtship of the future Madame Maigret is something no fan of Maigret will want to miss. MAIGRET'S MEMOIRS is a charming contrivance - and a quiet treat for the avid reader of Maigret mysteries.

It was one of those non-descript days in the winter of 1927 or 1928, when Jules Maigret was called into Chief Inspector Xavier Guichard's office. The Chief wanted Inspector Maigret to show the young writer Georges Simenon around the Quai des Orfevres. The twenty four year old Simenon followed Maigret around the headquarters and asked him about his cases. A few months later, Maigret found on his desk a copy of the book, The Girl with the Pearl Necklace. To his great surprise, he learned that without his permission he had become a character in Simenon's new novel! As time went on, Maigret found himself and his cases in more of Georges Simenon's novels. Soon the real and fictional Jules Maigret's lives became intertwined.Maigret's Memoirs is Jules Maigret's attempt to tell his side of his strange relationship with Georges Simenon and the Inspector Maigret he created. This book will be of interest to all Inspector Maigret fans. We learn of his childhood and his early years on the police force. Through his memoirs, Jules Maigret is able to fill out the real Maigret that Simenon has drawn upon as inspiration for his novels.