Simenon's protagonist, Maigret, called the Bergson of the new detective novel influenced by Freud after World War I, illustrates a change in emphasis in the genre. New methods of investigation that relied on instinct, intuition, and empathy gave primacy to irrational forces of the unconscious over rational deduction. Unlike Sherlock Holmes, Maigret tries not to reason but to understand intuitively.

Maigret Meets a Milord, one of the earliest of Simenon's Maigret novels, furnishes a fine introduction to the detective's modus operandi. For Maigret, the important thing is not to learn who committed the crime or how he committed it, but why he committed it.

The rain has been falling for two days when Maigret begins his work at lock 14, which connects the Marne with the lateral canal. The body of a welldressed unidentified woman without papers has been found in a horse stable reached only by...