The Maigret Circle

A rare post to pull together a few developments in the Simenon universe, which seems to be expanding as Penguin floods bookstores with its new Maigret translations: number eight in the series, The Grand Banks Café (previously The Sailor's Rendez-Vous) is due out 5 June. It's a shame no bookshops have had any offers on these new imprints to tempt me to augment my complete, if ramshackle, Maigret collection, but Penguin will get me out for the English-language debut of The Mahé Circle (1944), translated by Siân Reynolds and released simultaneously with The Grand Banks…

One of the prolific author's non-Maigret, romans durs, The Mahé Circle (cover image above) is an intriguing addition to Simenon's translated catalogue, in which the good Dr Mahé is trapped in a bleak infatuation on his recurring family holiday in Porquerolles - the island off the Côte d'Azur and the setting for My Friend Maigret (1949), one of the dozen or so books featured in Penguin's previous, apparently ill-fated Simenon revival back in 2003. A little down the coast, the Cannes Film Festival has hosted the premiere of Mathieu Amalric's intriguing adaptation of The Blue Room (1955), starring the actor-director alongside Stéphanie Cléau and Léa Drucker (here's the poster).

No doubt all this and more will be mulled over by biographers Pierre Assouline and Patrick Marnham when they share the stage at the Institut Français on 1 June. Their discussion follows a screening of one of my favourite Simenon adaptations, M Hire, as part of the Institut's all too short Noir is the Colour season.

Tout Maigret

In perhaps a belated tribute to the 110th anniversary of writer Georges Simenon's birth, Penguin is reprinting the full catalogue of his Inspector Maigret novels in new translations. The first of 75 books, Pietr the Latvian, is out this week, translated by David Bellos, and the rest will follow at one a month. The current calendar runs to The Saint-Fiacre Affair (number 13), which is due December 2014.

Penguin has tried remarketing Simenon twice in the past decade, with limited success. In 2003, on his centenary, a series of Maigrets was published in Penguin Classics, with covers by Keenan, alongside a handful of the author's notorious romans durs (as Modern Classics). Problems with Penguin's move to a new warehouse may have been to blame at the time, and three years later some of the Maigrets were repackaged once again, this time as pocketbooks.

This is an audacious move for what may have become an acquired taste for crime connoisseurs, and Pietr the Latvian (Maigret and the Enigmatic Lett in Daphne Woodward's 1963 translation, pictured) is no bad place to start; 10 Maigrets were published in 1931 and Simenon always said this was the first to be completed. The template is established here, alongside the introduction of other favourite characters including Madame Maigret, while Simenon can investigate one of his favourite themes: identity.

The current crop is branded "Inspector Maigret" and returns to the stock cover images of the Modern Classics*; the books are more faithful to the original titles and some of the goodies that await include The Night at the Crossroads (due April 2014) and The Bar on the Seine (October 2014). The problem for many fans is whether to invest once more in these new imprints, but what a happy problem!

*UPDATE I note from the estimable Caustic Cover Critic that the cover images have been specially commissioned from Belgian photographer Harry Gruyaert. I'm not convinced by them but fair play to Penguin for their commitment and, darn it, this makes these new editions all the more collectable.

Maigret's Paris: a walk

Georges Simenon's books, as I've noted before, are so thick with atmosphere they almost serve in their own right as guides to the cities in which they're set. He's best on Paris, most notably in the novels dedicated to Chief Inspector Maigret. It would be the work of a lifetime to plot the locations from his books - and many are long gone, of course - but a few obvious sites stand out.

Start at 36 Quai des Orfèvres, the headquarters of the Police Judiciare and Maigret's base, on the Île de la Cité. (This wonderful Life article includes a photo of Simenon climbing the stairs there, in the mould of his hero - and what great ads.) Behind it, on the Place Dauphine, is the setting for the fictional Chez Paul, the bar to which Maigret used to send for beers and sandwiches in the midst of one of his night-long interrogations.

Heading north-east is the Place des Vosges, where both Simenon (from 1924, with wife Tigy) and Maigret lived for a time, and then there's 132 Boulevard Richard Lenoir, as iconic to fans of the French detective as London's 221b Baker Street to admirers of Sherlock Holmes. A market on Thursday and Sunday mornings makes for a characteristic diversion but film-lovers may be tempted to travel a bit further, up to the Canal St Martin, setting for a scene in Jean-Pierre Jeunet's whimsical Amelie (2001), and home to Hôtel du Nord, immortalised by Marcel Carné in 1938. You'll need lunch by now, and one of the many lovely cafés round here should serve just fine.