Some of his trademark features are his pipe, his mixed approach to detecting (at times relying on pure intuition, at times on method) and his tendency to pop into small cafes to have several alcoholic beverages.

As with most protagonists in detective fiction, he is almost always successful. His sidekicks are not clichéd mindless puppets, only there to contrast with the brilliance of Maigret; instead, that rôle is reserved for the public prosecutor.

Seventy-five novels and twenty-eight shorter stories about Maigret were published between 1931 and 1972.

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