Maigret at the Crossroads

Maigret at the Crossroads is a detective novel by the Belgian writer Georges Simenon. Published in 1931, it is one of the earliest novels to feature Inspector Maigret in the role of the chief police investigator, a character that has since become one of the best-known detectives in fiction.

Premise

The plot of the novel is driven by the murder of Isaac Goldberg, a Jewish diamond merchant, in a place outside Paris known as the Three Widows' Crossroads.

Characters

The cast of characters includes:

Carl Andersen and Else Andersen, an aristocratic Danish duo who live in a secluded house at the crossroads
Monsieur Michonnet, an insurance agent in whose car the body of Goldberg was found
Monsieur Oscar, the owner of the service station at the crossroads

Translation

Originally written in French, the novel was translated into English by Robert Baldick and published by Penguin in 1963. In 2014 Penguin published a new translation by Linda Coverdale, titled The Night at the Crossroads.

In other media

It was dramatized as Night at the Crossroads in 1932 in a film written and directed by Jean Renoir, starring the director's brother Pierre Renoir as Inspector Maigret and in 2017 in the later ITV series, starring Rowan Atkinson.