The New Investigations of Inspector Maigret is a collection of seventeen short stories featuring the iconic Maigret that has been previously published in 1994 as Maigret’s Pipe. This edition is translated by Howard Curtis and Ros Schwartz.

It takes a night wielding a pickaxe for DCI Maigret to solve the mystery of an unhappy couple hanged on a barge on the Seine.
Hours of intense interrogation of the sister and the husband are needed before Maigret solves the mysterious poisoning death at Boulevard Beaumarch: murder by intent but not by commission.
Maigret takes two inspectors along to arrest a crooked businessman who apparently shoots himself in the temple as they wait: Maigret is not convinced.

Maigret sets out to investigate the unusual death of a Breton maid, in service to a doctor accused by her parents. The doctor, it seems, has already carried out a thorough investigation: his story is so seemingly far-fetched, Maigret ha to check every aspect.
An early-hours call from his nephew sends Maigret to the Belgian border train station, where Inspector Paul Vinchan is holding back a carriage of the Berlin train and five passengers. Paul hopes that his uncle will examine the scene and interrogate the passengers to solve the murder of the sixth passenger.
Maigret follows a young couple to Brussels, shadowing them closely, obviously. The man is suspected of murdering his uncle. His persistence gets not quite the desired, but at least a satisfactory result.

A man accused of killing his mother and stabbing his aunt sees Maigret taking a long journey to a tiny remote village in the forest of Orleans to investigate. His thorough examination of the scene reveals the truth of the matter.
An early-morning phone tip-off sends Maigret to a restaurant in Rue Pigalle, where a criminal has holed up overnight trying to avoid his opposition waiting across the road for his departure. Weapons are confiscated, a removals truck yields a body in a trunk, and an arrest is made.
Maigret is convinced that the sleazy owner of the Special Bookshop on Rue Saint-Denis killed his pretty assistant. But he is wrong. The owner is still enough of a creep to tempt Maigret’s fist, though.

From her window Henriette Maigret observes a stranger of old-fashioned manner and garb who takes a daily stroll in the gardens and occupies a seat for some hours. Maigret jokingly refers to him as her suitor, but Henriette wonders if he is spying on someone. Then, as an unwitting witness to a crime and, later, a covert investigator, Mme Maigret endures her husband in full investigative mode. It seems Mme Maigret might make a good detective.

In Caen, a young woman asks Maigret to look into the death of her patroness, apparently by heart attack: she is certain the woman’s greedy nephew murdered her. His story seems plausible, though, so someone is lying, and Maigret’s thorough investigation reveals exactly who.
In Nemours on a minor case, Maigret is dragged into the intriguing case of a car in the river Loing. A lorry collides with an unlit car in heavy rain. The occupants, an eloping Parisian couple, are missing, but there’s a body, quite definitely murdered, in the boot.
In the Rue de Birague, Maigret and his team are staking out the seedy Hotel Beausejour, where they believe a ruthless gang of murdering Polish thieves are holed up. Meanwhile, an immigrant Polish gym teacher with an apparent death wish is being a real nuisance.

Just two days before he is due to retire, Maigret spends hours grilling a young woman who is the most likely suspect for the stabbing murder of a travelling salesman at the Etoile du Nord hotel. His intentions, though, are not what his colleagues expect.
Three months retired, the Maigrets’ London trip is delayed by weather, and they are stuck in a Dieppe boarding house when the maid is shot dead in a nearby alley. Maigret is dismayed to find he makes a poor witness and, when invited to sit in on interrogations, finds it hard to maintain silence.
A letter summons Maigret to Paris from his retirement home in Meung sur Loire. A young relative of a late colleague fears for her life from a boyfriend who turns out to be a petty criminal. But is she genuine?

Maigret is not pleased to be disturbed in the garden of his cottage on the Loire by a notary from Chateauneuf who just about railroads him into discovering if his prospective son-in-law is responsible for the theft of his valuable ivory pieces, an exercise which will require assuming a false identity.
This is a collection of tales of varying lengths, a series of enjoyable small doses of the inimitable DCI Maigret.
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Penguin Press UK.