It's time to choose our 1940's Maigret title!

[Christine PNW, Agathyte]

Here is a list of the Maigret titles published from 1940 through 1949:

The Cellars of the Majestic, 1942

'Try to imagine a guest, a wealthy woman, staying at the Majestic with her husband, her son, a nurse and a governess . . . In a suite that costs more than a thousand francs a day . . . At six in the morning, she's strangled, not in her room, but in the basement locker room'

Below stairs at a glamorous hotel on the Champs-Élysées, the workers' lives are worlds away from the luxury enjoyed by the wealthy guests. When their worlds meet, Maigret discovers a tragic story of ambition, blackmail and unrequited love.

The Judge's House, 1940

Exiled from Paris, Maigret discovers some disturbing secrets in a sleepy coastal town in this new translation, book twentytwo in the new Penguin Maigret series.

A short, sprightly man appeared in the doorway, looked left and right, and went back into the passage. A moment later, the improbable happened. The little man reappeared, bent over, clinging to a long mass that he now started dragging through the mud.

It must have been heavy. After four metres, he stopped to catch his breath. The front door of the house had been left open. The sea was still twenty or thirty metres away.

Cécile is Dead, 1942

Barely twenty-eight years old. But it would be difficult to look more like an old maid, to move less gracefully, no matter how hard she tried to be pleasing. Those black dresses ... that ridiculous green hat!

For six months the dowdy Cécile has been coming to the police station, desperate to convince them that someone has been breaking into her aunt's apartment. No one takes her seriously — until Maigret unearth a story of merciless, deep-rooted greed.

Signed, Picpus, 1944

A small, thin man, rather dull to look at, neither young nor old, exuding the stale smell of a bachelor who does not look after himself. He pulls his fingers and cracks his knuckles and tells his tale the way a schoolboy recites his lesson.

A mysterious note predicting the murder of a fortune-teller; a confused old man locked in a Paris apartment; a financier who goes fishing; a South American heiress ... Maigret must make his way through a frustrating maze of clues, suspects and motives to find out what connects them.

Inspector Cadaver, 1943

Maigret's old colleague becomes an unexpected rival in book twenty-four of the new Penguin Maigret series. In everyone's eyes, even the old ladies hiding behind their quivering curtains, even the kids just now who had turned to stare after they had passed him, he was the intruder, the undesirable. No, worse, he was fundamentally untrustworthy, some stranger who had just turned up from who knew where to do who knew what.

Félicie, 1944

Peg Leg Lapie, a crusty old sailor, is found mysteriously murdered in a most incongruous setting: a picturesque cottage near Paris, where he lived attended only by his young housekeeper, Felicie. But Lapie was not alone Maigret, chief inspector of the Paris police, is sure of it. A man at work in his garden, wearing clogs and a straw hat, does not suddenly drop his tools to go indoors and fetch a bottle of brandy to drink alone in the summerhouse. There must have been another glass that someone removed. But Félicie, in her red hat trimmed with an iridescent feather, proves a champion adversary, as skilled in innuendo and evasion as Maigret is in deduction.Less

Maigret Gets Angry, 1947

Maigret is cajoled out of retirement by a case involving an old classmate in book twenty-six of the new Penguin Maigret series.

"All that was still unclear, for sure. Ernest Malik had been right when he had looked at Maigret with a smile that was a mixture of sarcasm and contempt. This wasn't a case for him. He was out of his depth. This world was unfamiliar to him, and he had difficulty piecing it all together."

Peacefully tending his garden in the countryside, Maigret is called upon to investigate a rich family with skeletons in their closet - and finds himself confronted by lies, snobbery and malice.

Maigret in New York, 1946

Aged 56 and in his first year of retirement at Meung-sur-Loire, Maigret is surprised with a visit by Jean, the son of wealthy New York businessman John Maura. With the assistance of his aging lawyer, Jean convinces Maigret to accompany him to New York, where he believes his father is in danger. But things take an unexpected turn upon their arrival when it is Jean himself who disappears. Set against the mysterious backdrop of New York City, Maigret's investigation must unearth old crimes, outsmart treacherous characters, and overcome his status as an outsider policeman in the city.

Maigret's Holiday, 1947

While on holiday, Inspector Maigret is drawn into the murder of a teenage girl and subsequent disappearance of her brother and must confront an evil that is hidden in plain sight.

During their holidays in Sables-d’Olonne, Maigret’s wife is hospitalized with appendicitis, and Maigret receives a strange note instructing him to visit a patient in another ward. To solve the mysterious case that has left a young woman dead and her brother missing, Maigret must give one of his best performances yet in a story laced with mood, class tension, and in the end, of course, justice.

Maigret's Dead Man, 1947

'That shoeless foot looked incongruous lying on the pavement next to another foot encased in a shoe made of black kid leather. It was naked, private . . . It was Maigret who retrieved the other shoe which lay by the kerb six or seven metres away'

A series of strange phone calls leads Inspector Maigret through the Paris streets towards a man out of his depth amid a network of merciless criminals.

Maigret's First Case, 1948

The profession he had always yearned for did not actually exist ... he imagined a cross between a doctor and a priest, a man capable of understanding another's destiny at first glance.

The very first investigation by eager young police secretary Jules Maigret leads him to a wealthy Paris family's dark secrets.

My Friend Maigret, 1949

Past acquaintances resurface in the sun-drenched south of France in this new translation, book thirty-one of the new Penguin Maigret series.

'The palm trees around the railway station were motionless, fixed in a Saharan sun . . . It really felt as if they were stepping into another world, and they were embarrassed to be entering it in the dark clothes that had been suited to the rainy streets of Paris the evening before.'

An officer from Scotland Yard is studying Maigret's methods when a call from an island off the Côte d'Azure sends the two men off to an isolated community to investigate its eccentric inhabitants.

Maigret at the Coroner's, 1949

Maigret grapples with the American justice system on a trip to Arizona in this new translation, book thirty-two of the new Penguin Maigret series.

The FBI man was convinced, in short, that Maigret was a big shot in his own country but that here, in the United States, he was incapable of figuring out anything . . .well, Maigret happened to believe that men and their passions are the same everywhere.

Maigret is touring the United States to observe American policing methods, when a visit to a coroner's inquest in Arizona draws him into the tragic story of a young woman and five airmen in the desert.

I have already read The Cellars of the Majestic, The Judge's House & Maigret's Holiday.

[Christine PNW, Agathyte]

Let me know in the comments which of these sound most intriguing to you!

[Jazzy]

ooh i love them all. but i'll go for Félicie as i need a title that starts with F to complete a challenge :)

[Rosemarie]

My Friend Maigret sounds intriguing.
I read a number of Maigrets more than 20 years ago- and they're all so different in a good way.

[Christine]

I like Cecile is Dead.

[Marie]

Jazzy wrote: "ooh i love them all. but i'll go for Félicie as i need a title that starts with F to complete a challenge :)"

Idle curiosity— didn’t Five Little Pigs qualify? Or does the first letter of the title have to correspond to the numeric month? “E” in May, for instance?

[Marie]

Cécile is Dead gets my vote.

[Peregrina651]

I'm voting for Cécile is Dead. That makes it three votes for Cecile and one each for the other two titles that have been named.

Since these titles are all on deep discount through Friday on Audible, I'm off to buy a copy (and a few other while I am at it) with the firm conviction that Cecile will be the winner. ;-)

[Christine PNW, Agathyte]

I'm going to give this thread another 48 hours, and then close it. If we don't get any other votes, it will be Cecile is Dead! Since that seems to be the favorite so far, I'll vote for it, too, so it now has 4 votes!

Having said that, I am also fine with people reading a different Maigret, or, even, multiple books from the list presented - so long is it works for our theme of 1940's mysteries!

[Peregrina651]

"I am also fine with people reading a different Maigret, or, even, multiple books from the list presented - so long is it works for our theme of 1940's mysteries!"

Good, because I grabbed 4 of them, all from the list above, and depending on my mood, I may read all of them. Or then again, I may hoard them and parcel them out over a longer period of time. Simenon doesn't go on sale very often.

[Cphe]

I have Maigret and the Man on the Bench - so will read that for my Maigret read if that is okay.

[Christine PNW, Agathyte]

Cphe wrote: "I have Maigret and the Man on the Bench - so will read that for my Maigret read if that is okay."

It's 1950's Maigret not 1940's Maigret, but I don't have any issue with you reading & participating in the discussion. Maybe we will be able to discern some differences between the 40's and the 50's!