Photo courtesy: PBS Masterpiece and Playground

Based on the novels by Georges Simenon, the first contemporary television adaptation of Georges Simenon’s beloved novels about the streetwise Parisian Chief Inspector (Police Judiciaire detective Commissaire) Jules Maigret has gone into production in Budapest which, once again, doubles for post-WWII France.

According to Masterpiece and Playground, the Golden Globe and BAFTA award winning production company behind upcoming series Wolf Hall: The Mirror and The Light for BBC/Masterpiece, Jules Maigret will be played by Benjamin Wainwright (Belgravia: The Next Chapter, Lord of the Rings: War of the Rohirrim), and Stefanie Martini (The Gold, Last Kingdom, Emerald City) stars as Madame Louise Maigret.

Blake Harrison (World on Fire, I Hate Suzie Too), Reda Elazouar (Sex Education, Pirates), Kerrie Hayes (The Responder, Criminal Record), Shaniqua Okwok (The Flatshare, It’s a Sin) and Rob Kazinsky (Star Trek: Section 31, Eastenders) make up the “Les Maigrets,” Maigret’s loyal team of detectives, with Nathalie Armin (Showtrial S2, Juice) set to play Prosecutor Mathilde Kernavel.

As lead writer and executive producer, Patrick Harbinson’s (Homeland, 24, The Tower) adaptation will reframe Maigret as an unconventional young detective with something to prove the Police Judiciaire, relentless in his investigations, chasing and a matchless knowledge of Paris and its inhabitants. Faithfully and lovingly married to Madame Maigret, Maigret heads the elite police unit known as La Crim, responsible for investigating all serious crime in and around Paris.

The Jules Maigret series from author George Simenon, is the second best-selling detective series ever, behind only Sherlock Holmes, with more than 800 million copies of his books (75 novels and 28 short stories) sold in more than 50 languages.

The initial television adaptation of Simenon’s work premiered in 1960 on the BBC and ran for three years with Rupert Davies in the lead role. In 1992, the series was remade for ITV and PBS as part of the Mystery! series with Michael Gambon in the title role. A third adaptation premiered in 2016 with Rowan Atkinson brilliant playing the fictional French detective in, unfortunately, only 4 episodes.

Rowan Atkinson and Shaun Dingwall in Maigret Sets A Trap Photograph: Colin Hutton/ITV/Ealing Studios and Maigret Productions Ltd

What I always loved about the Maigret series and, especially, the episodes starring Rowan Atkinson was that in the era of endlessly tormented DCI’s such as Alan Banks, Kurt Wallander and John Luther, Jules Maigret methodically went about his business solving whatever crime presented itself on the 1950s streets of Paris while always going home to his wife, Margaret, to discuss the case at hand.

As Simenon always pointed out, ‘Maigret is good at this not because he is a genius, or has special methods, but because he listens – he doesn’t solve crimes so much as he solves people’.

Maigret is definitely one to keep an eye out for when it makes it to the small screen on PBS Masterpiece.