Georges Simenon wrote 193 novels--under his own name. The other 200-odd were written under various pseudonyms. But the ones he's remembered for are the Inspector Maigret novels. "At a time when fictional detectives were gentleman amateurs in nostalgic settings, such as Agatha Christie's Hercules Poirot on the Orient Express, Simenon's seedy underworld of murderers and prostitutes, described in deadpan style with a limited 2,000-word vocabulary, was despised by the critics but devoured by the public and was soon translated into 55 languages," writes Jackie Wullschlager in the Financial Times. Like the Babu, she rejoices at Simenon's newly acquired classic status.