Writing late in his Maigret series, Simenon takes us back to Paris in 1913 where the 26 year old policeman takes on his first case. We learn much about the man who will figure in dozens of Paris mysteries—born the son of a bailiff on a large rural estate, Maigret studies medicine until his father dies and then turns to the police. Known to the head of the Paris police through his rural roots, Maigret gets a series of jobs throughout the police force learning how it operates until as the Secretary to the Chief of the Saint-Georges Police Station, he is confronted by a distraught flautist who had heard a shot and been punched in the face at one of Paris’s most wealthy and high society homes, that of the Gendreau-Balthazar household. Given the assignment by his chief, largely because the latter anticipated failure, Maigret demonstrates many of his career-long habits—long periods of sedentary observation, deep exploration of the individuals and their psyches, endless turning about the details in his brain—and ends up solving the case, much to the discomfiture of his bosses who are more concerned with containing scandal. Maigret comes to terms with the realities of police work, rather than his idealistic notion of manager of peoples’ destinies, and is bumped upstairs to join the Chief Inspector’s squad at Qaui de Ofevres, joining the inspectors at the Brassserie Dauphine.   We have learned that he and Madame Maigret occupied their apartment on Rue deRichard Lenoir when they were first married, that his full name is Jules Amedee Francois, that in 1913 he was a ‘baby faced constable’. Great find!