Maigret is at home along the quays and canals of Paris, in workmens' bistros, along back streets and in slum rooming houses rank with bad smells. He has a special empathy for the helpless and vulnerable in the big city. In Maigret and the Young Girl, he only has to look at the body of the murdered girl found on a sidewalk, wearing a cheap rented evening gown, to understand her nature. Maigret looks at a girl like that and knows that the barman he questioned was lying when he said that she had been drinking martinis while waiting for someone in his bar. Maigret knew that such a girl did not drink martinis.

He is less at ease in the fashionable districts and cafés of Montparnasse or in the quiet elegance of right bank residences and big hotels but he enjoys the cases he finds in these elite circles because he sees through the façade of wealth and prestige and exposes unforgivable crimes and murders motivated by greed.

The setting of a crime plays a crucial role in all the Maigret novels. The social and geographical environment and the relative wealth and class status of each character he meets influences the development of his investigation and often provides the underlying cause of the crime. Most of Maigret’s cases are set in and around Paris and Maigret is often associated with the romantic imagery of 50s and 60s Paris.