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Last week, I traveled, virtually, around England with the Interior Design Masters.

Maigret is the latest of many films and TV shows made from the Jules Maigret series of novels by Belgian author Georges Simenon. The novels were contemporary mysteries published from 1930 to 1972, a total of 75, plus short stories. Jules Maigret is a detective in Paris and the novels were written in French.

I have memories of Maigret, but I can’t remember whether I read some of the novels or I watched the series from the early 1990s of 12 episodes over two seasons. That version of Maigret was created for ITV and for Mystery! on PBS. I might have watched the shows and been inspired to read some of the novels. This was long before I was keeping any record of what I read or watched, so I’ll never know for sure.

At any rate, this Maigret feels different because it is set in modern times. He still carries around a pipe, but he doesn’t smoke it. He doesn’t wear a hat (which is something I remember from my earlier exposure to Maigret) but he does wear a distinctive coat and rarely removes it, even when everyone around him thinks it’s too warm for an outer layer.

Maigret, played by Benjamin Wainwright, is quiet and observant. I liked how other characters were used to bring out aspects of Maigret that weren’t visible to the viewer when he was doing his detective work. His wife, who was a major character in the novels, has an important role as a psychiatric nurse who occasionally advises Maigret about the way people think. His supervisor, Prosecutor Mathilde Kernavel, prefers things to happen by the book but she gives Maigret just enough leeway so that he can effectively solve crimes in his own way and time.

Although this series is set in France, mostly Paris, Maigret is very much a British production by American-British company Playground Entertainment. The shows were filmed mostly in Budapest, but there are lots of fun flyovers of Paris for those of us who like a glimpse of the Eiffel Tower and other landmarks.

We watched Maigret using our PBS Passport, a benefit of belonging to our local PBS Station. A second season is reportedly in production.

Check out the trailer:

Have you seen Maigret? What did you think?