Imagined crossover · Golden Age
What if Hercule Poirot met Jules Maigret?
The Belgian and the commissaire. Two French-speaking giants of crime fiction with completely opposite methods, who would come to admire each other.
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The pair
Hercule PoirotBelgian detective who relies on his “little grey cells”By Agatha Christie · Hercule Poirot · first in The Mysterious Affair at Styles
Jules MaigretCommissaire of the Paris Police JudiciaireBy Georges Simenon · Inspector Maigret · first in Pietr the Latvian
Chemistry7/10
Friction6/10
Would you read this crossover?
Where and when
Paris
The 1930s
The story
- How they might meet
- A wealthy Englishman is murdered in a Paris hotel, and Poirot, staying two floors above, offers his help to a large, silent detective from the Quai des Orfèvres.
- Why they would work
- Two French-speaking giants of crime fiction with completely opposite methods, who would come to admire each other.
- What each brings
- Poirot’s order and method meet Maigret’s patient absorption of a place and its people. One reasons, the other feels his way to the truth.
- Where they would clash
- Poirot cannot stand disorder; Maigret lives on beer, sandwiches and long silences. Neither would hurry for the other.
Strengths compared
Hercule Poirot Jules Maigret
Our own ratings out of 10, for fun.
On the page together
The years in which each character's books were published.
Read your way in
Start with each character's first appearance.
- The Mysterious Affair at StylesAgatha Christie · 1920 · Hercule Poirot's first appearanceBuy on Amazon
- Pietr the LatvianGeorges Simenon · 1931 · Jules Maigret's first appearanceBuy on Amazon
