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Domestic noir at its very best. Small minds, small lives. The lives of people full of the scent of envy, greed, desperation on a small scale.
#12booksof2020. #domesticnoir

Domestic noir at its very best. Small minds, small lives. The lives of people full of the scent of envy, greed, desperation on a small scale. These settings are done so well by Simenon. Not a lot of actions or deductions. It‘s human nature on full display in its pettiness, almost intolerable greyness and absence of light. Very well done.

Sometimes best laid plans go sideways. So I kinda went and started my next in the series Maigret novel. I felt like French noir comfort read. It's been a long,hard week at work. When I'm exhausted I turn to comfort read. 🐧 are in Detroit. Sid is back. 🥰 #readingandwatchinghockey

I ended up loving this story, as Maigret uses his feel for people, rather than any great deductive power, to unravel a tragically petit bourgeois murder. The Parisian period atmosphere (contemporary when written in 1932, historical now) is a huge part of the attraction for me.
Simenon describes Maigret as a burly, physically imposing man, and my conception of him is now more Gambon than Atkinson, though, weirdly, still with Atkinson's voice!

Starting my second Maigret - I'm struggling to get into this one, despite the action kicking straight in. It's probably me rather than Simenon. Let's see how it feels when I'm outside of a cup of coffee and a cheese croissant ☕🥐📖

Lined up a few more Maigret's courtesy of The Library. There's nearly 20 years between the publication of the earliest and latest of these three books, about 60 stories under the bridge, too. It should be interesting to see how fresh Simenon is over this span of time.