Three paperbacks by Georges Simenon

I said that paperbacks were cheap at the Sunday morning brocante in Bordeaux. Naturally, I bought some, three 1970s 'Livre de Poche' editions of Simenon at €2 each, 3 for €5. One of the things I had promised myself for this trip to France was that I would get hold of some Maigret, and now Bordeaux obligingly provided me with the opportunity.

I read a lot of crime fiction; and I'm always on the look-out for recreational reading in French. How is it possible that I had never before read any Maigret? I don't know, but somehow that's the case. Any mental image I have is the vaguest memory of the 1960s television version, with Rupert Davies lighting his pipe in the opening sequence (it's one of the very few television programmes I associate with my father). The story would be set in Paris, of course, 36, quai des Orfèvres, and - no, that's all I knew.

Or thought I knew. ( 13 Puzzles )

( Night at the Crossroads )

( Maigret meets a Milord )

I don't know what it is about this book - both of these books - that makes me want to compare them to other books and moves, and there's a risk in doing so of creating exaggerated expectations. There's something a little stereotyped about the characters, something a bit larger than life (which may be why I see echoes of other fictitious characters in them). I would never dismiss a book as 'only a detective story' (some of my favourite books are detective stories). But both of these novels, in different ways, sit squarely within the genre of the murder mystery.

Now I need to read more Maigret, to see where the series went from these two early examples.