A gripping new translation of the iconic short story collection featuring Simenon's celebrated literary detective'The truth was, Maigret knew nothing! Maigret felt. Maigret was sure he was right, would have bet his life on it. But in vain he'd turned the problem over a hundred times in his head, in vain he'd had every taxi driver in Paris questioned' A sumptuous mansion hiding terrible crimes, a distressed young woman's cry for help, a gunshot on a rainy Dieppe street, a runaway couple with a secret: these seventeen Inspector Maigret short stories, written and published in journals during the Second World War, show Simenon's celebrated detective uncovering the darkness beneath ordinary lives.'Not just the world's bestselling detective series, but an imperishable literary legend . . . he exposes secrets and crimes not by forensic wizardry, but by the melded powers of therapist, philosopher and confessor' Boyd Tonkin, The Times