The Man Who Wasn't Maigret: A Portrait of Georges Simenon

When the prolific Georges Simenon died at age 86 in 1989, he had written hundreds of novels and several memoirs. Among the author's favorites were his books about shrewd and compassionate Inspector Maigret, conceived by Simenon in 1931 after he left Belgium to live in Paris. As Marnham ( Trail of Havoc: In the Steps of Lord Lucan ) shows, the hero of Simenon's superb French policiers is quite different from his creator. The author's life was turbulent: he was sexually obsessed; he abandoned his wife and son to marry a woman who was as promiscuous as he was; he coupled with his maids. Simenon himself revealed much of this in his last book, Intimate Memoirs, addressed to his only daughter, Marie-Jo, after she committed suicide at age 23 in 1978. Marnham's scrupulous study of this memoir and of Simenon's Belgian family background lay bare Simenon's fantomes. This is a story of an enigma, a man more extraordinary than any character in his perennial bestsellers, and certainly nothing like the admirable Maigret. Photos not seen by PW. (May)