Starting my 1st Simenon ever, The Madman of Bergerac, as part of my 2024 Dordogne challenge. And since today (Nov, 29) is the day of juniper in the French revolutionary calendar, I am having juniper tea. I don't know why this berry is so underused these days: it's lovely and so fragrant!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Republican_calendar#Autu...
pickMaigret is called to Delfzijl, a Dutch port town, to assist a French citizen entangled in a murder, his investigation hampered by his inability to speak Dutch, while only some of the suspects speak French.
The townsfolk are stuffily provincial & would rather the crime go unsolved than an embarrassing scandal be exposed, so Maigret's relentless prodding at the truth is most unwelcome.
Most of the characters are unsympathetic in a claustrophobic ⬇️
"When Detective Chief Inspector Maigret arrived in Delfzijl, one afternoon in May, he had only the sketchiest notions about the case taking him to this small town located in the northernmost corner of Holland."
#FirstLineFridays @ShyBookOwl
pickMaigret investigates the stabbing in an alley of an unassuming man leading a double life, despised by his wife and family, held in affection by past co-workers and acquaintances. The mystery of how he funded this life forms a principle strand of Maigret's enquiries.
Cold, torrential, late-autumnal rain and humid, overheated rooms infuse the atmosphere, with the inspector brooding ruefully on the "quiet desperation" of the lives he encounters.
I'm starting to run out of the libraries' inventories of Maigret novels, which is a shame as I've not read half of them yet. It does mean that I'm reading this LARGE PRINT edition due to availability, and somewhat previous to necessity because of my aging vision 🤓
The opening of the plot is a mystery staple: if the dead man's employer went bust years ago, what has he been doing all the time he told his wife he was going into work? 🤔
pickCharacter is everything in this episode. Maigret divines personalities and motivations to gradually unfold the psychological currents which have led to the murder of the mistress of a brilliant but amoral brain surgeon. Maigret himself is very much under Simenon's microscope in this one, and it's been said that Maigret and the surgeon are starkly reflected aspects of Georges himself, which is somewhat disturbing, come to think of it. 4.5 ⭐
Stop the bus! A new-to-me Maigret at the library 😁 Everything else on hold until I've read this. At number 43 in the series, it's about halfway through the run, written in 1953, so Maigret is already a well established institution in the police service.
In this one, the blurb says he makes an uncharacteristic error of judgement, which is a good hook. Looking forward to this one.
pickInspector Maigret is in the Netherlands helping to investigate a murder that implicates a fellow French citizen, and there are plenty of suspects with good motives.
I've been reading this series in French from the beginning. This 8th book is the first that feels like a Agatha Christie style of mystery. Maigret even gathers all the suspects together at the end to reveal the murderer.
