In his own words, Maigret reflects on his legacy--and storytelling itself--in this metatextual meditation on narrative, policing, and truth.

Is the real Inspector Maigret the mentally agile, physically ponderous detective of Georges Simenon's famous novels? Or is this character a distorted facsimile of an actual person? In a startling turn of events, the original Jules Maigret of the Paris Police Judiciaire now takes the reins from Simenon and reveals, with self-effacing candor and some trepidation, where reality ends and skillful storytelling begins. As he well knows, his identity cannot be disentangled from his fictional alter ego's. Indeed, over the decades, the gap between "Maigret" and Maigret has only narrowed. Yet his urge to assert his individuality is, he hopes, understandable--because aren't we all discomfited when shown an image of ourselves that is almost, but not quite, true to life?