[brmgb]

> Another striking thing about Maigret is how much he relies on the police force around him.

That's because he is a "commissaire", a superintendant, for most of the books.

Maigret is in a lot of way the reverse of a hard boiled detective. He is if not happy at least content in his career as a civil servant and bureaucrat. He is perfectly adept at navigating his hierarchy and knowns his place. Maigret serves a system he respects and values, fully aware of his prejudices which he sees a necessary wall between the honest people and the miscreants. He is very much upper middle class, what the French would call petit bourgeois, a happily married catholic who likes order and long meals.

The article rightfully points that these novels have a reactionary surface but try to find a redeeming feature in how they describe society in its totality. I would be less generous.