The solution is the mystery

They had met in France, where the worthy Inspector Pyke had come to study the methods of the Police Judiciare, and of Maigret especially, and had been surprised to discover that Maigret had no method at all.

Georges Simenon, Maigret and the Ghost

Most of the great fictional detectives, from Sherlock Holmes to Columbo, are smarter than their fans. Even so we have some idea how they work. At the very end, at least, we learn how they got from Point A to Point B. Detective Chief Inspector Maigret, however, has no method at all, as Georges Simenon tells us in Maigret and the Ghost (1964). We have no clue how he reads his clues, or even in many cases what clues he is reading.

Even so, these relatively short novels make compulsive reading, and this one is no exception. And no, this is not a ghost story.

One of the other detectives in the Paris police force is a man named Lognon, but behind his back he is usually called Inspector Luckless or Inspector Hard-Done-By. Although a clever detective, something always goes wrong with his cases. Even when they reach a successful conclusion, somebody else always gets the credit. Now Lognon is found shot and near death just outside the residence of a young woman, with whom the married detective had been spending each night.

An extramarital affair gone wrong? Not to Margaret's eyes. He goes across the street to try to discover what has been going on in the home of a notable art dealer and his beautiful wife. Why has Lognon been watching this house every night?

Maigret may be famous and mystifying, but in most respects he is an ordinary man with a wife he loves and a home he loves to go home to. Madame Maigret usually appears in these novels, and here he credits her with helping to solve the case, even though she has no idea how.

Neither do the rest of us, but it is fun watching it happen just the same.