Simenon, A GIANT

Simenon wrote possessed by a kind of trance ... the character's name was, was following the story .... This man, in a dark vein of great realistic style, the "minimalist" talent (I never read a writer as capable a few words you create an atmosphere imbibing as much as imagined history), "olfactory" (each survey exhales the smell of an apple of Alsace, a small dry white flint taste , of aniseed aperitif.) created a sort of "weigher of souls" can untie criminal situations, understand the inner workings of bitterness, fury, jealousy, desires and cross walks cured in their hatred and contempt for the annealing class oppositions, without losing his humanity or empathy nor his sense of justice. Jules Maigret therefore this making him a literary legend.
Unlike Doyle sucked by Sherlock Holmes, Simenon always preserved in his work which amounted to Maigret and his hard novels. This is not the least of its successes.