Maigret And The Calame Report

The Inspector must enter the unsavory world of politics to help a conscientious politician. Maigret is secretly summoned by a distraught cabinet minister who needs help in recovering a document - the Calame report, an engineering study that warned that a government-funded children's sanitarium was of unstable design. The study was hushed up, the report stolen, and the disaster made reality - with 128 children killed in the building's collapse. Now Maigret must plumb the depths of government corruption to find the thief and the report - and let the compromised government fall where it may.

“One of the greatest writers of the twentieth century . . . Simenon was unequaled at making us look inside, though the ability was masked by his brilliance at absorbing us obsessively in his stories.” —The Guardian When a public tragedy threatens to expose a scandal within the Paris government, the Minister of Public Works calls in a favor to Maigret A public project has collapsed and resulted in the death of 128 children after a report warning officials about the unsafe structure was disregarded. Now, that report has resurfaced, along with allegations that several politicians and contractors involved with the project may have suppressed its findings to avoid a scandal. Maigret must enter the shifty world of politics, dodged by members of the security police wherever he goes. In an unfamiliar world of decadent diplomatic officials, fanatic followers of political parties, and suspicious staff in politicians’ entourages, Maigret grimly sticks to what he knows best: finding the perpetrators of criminal acts.

Absorbing mystery from the French master.

“One of the greatest writers of the twentieth century . . . Simenon was unequaled at making us look inside, though the ability was masked by his brilliance at absorbing us obsessively in his stories.” —The Guardian When the body of a young girl is found in a Montmartre park, Maigret must team up with a rival investigator to bring her killer to justice. Maigret and fellow inspector Lognon clash in their investigations into the murder of an unknown young woman in Paris. Maigret endeavors to piece together the story of the girl, and in doing so, uncovers details about her past and her character that lead him to the truth behind her tragic demise.

“One of the greatest writers of the twentieth century . . . Simenon was unequaled at making us look inside, though the ability was masked by his brilliance at absorbing us obsessively in his stories.” —The Guardian When a Paris musician witnesses an altercation that may have been a murder, the young Inspector Maigret becomes embroiled in his first case A musician walking home along the Rue Chaptal in the early hours of the morning sees a panic-stricken woman call for help from an upstairs window; moments later he hears a gun shot. He tries to go to her assistance, pushing past the man who opens the door upon his frantic knocking, but he finds himself roughly ejected from the premises. Undeterred, he heads for the nearest police station and urges Maigret to return with him and find out what has taken place. With this look into the man he once was and how he became the insightful inspector we have some to know, Simenon offers new insights into the brilliance of Maigret.

Georges Simenon's 75 novels and 28 short stories that feature Chief Inspector Jules Maigret provide us with a great deal of information about the French police detective--but only in small, episodic doses. As readers become acquainted with Maigret one detail at a time, he slowly takes on a flesh-and-bone realism--not merely a character in a story, but someone we would like to meet in real life. This book presents all the canonical facts and details about the detective and his world in one place, presented with tabulations and analyses that enable a better understanding of the works and of Maigret himself.