With Christmas so close here are some short reviews of books that will make good gifts or light reading during the season as it invites us to settle down by a fireplace to read and to listen to gentle music.

Let me start with "Maigret's Christmas", a book of short pieces by the great French master of detective stories, Georges Simenon. These capture the Paris of his time (the 1940s and '50s), a Paris that has not really changed very much despite some grandiose new buildings that successive French prime ministers and presidents have had erected to mark their reigns. Anyone, who knows Paris a little, will recognize the places mentioned, the streets, the city districts.

These are tales with simple plots, and easy solutions to the crimes. They are, as the French would say, "les amusettes", little idle pleasures. Inspector Maigret and his team of helpers have a casual way of solving crime. There is a bit of Agatha Christy's Miss . . .

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