The Quai des Orfèvres, Former HQ of the French Police Judiciaire

Right across the way from the cathedral of Notre Dame on the Île de la Cité is the Quai des Orfèvres, former headquarters of the French Police Judiciaire and office of Inspector Jules Maigret, Georges Simenon’s hero in some seventy-five mystery novels.

What better way to end 2025, I thought to myself, than to read a Maigret novel I had never read before. Since I have read most of them by now, that was not an easy decision to make. Fortunately, I dug deep in one of my book piles and came up with Maigret and the Apparition (aka Maigret and the Ghost), published in 1964 as Maigret et le fantôme.

The book starts with the shooting of a detective inspector from the 18th Arrondissement who was a friend of Maigret’s. At first, nothing seems to make sense; and there are no Sherlockian clues that give the crime away. Simenon’s Maigret novels are not tales of ratiocination à la Edgar Allan Poe. This is not the Anglo-Saxon world of crime: What Maigret adheres to is a Gallic combination of thoroughness and intuition. The solution eventually emerges only when he has looked hard at every detail in the case.

Famously, Maigret does not come up with any theories as he follows through on the investigation. The active principle here is not ratiocination, but se débruillier, to, in effect, “defog” the mass of evidence and suspects. As Google’s artificial intelligence summary has it:

Débrouiller (reflexive: se débrouiller) is a versatile French verb meaning to manage, cope, get by, sort out, or figure things out, especially when facing challenges, implying resourcefulness to overcome obstacles and find solutions, like “I can manage” (Je me débrouille) or “to sort out a situation” (débrouiller une situation). 

Apparently, it worked for Simenon, whose works continue to enthrall after many decades..