Crime Ration with Maigret

I’m not the greatest fan of crime fiction – I don’t like descriptions of blood and gore – but I do like the Maigret books, and you don’t often see them around, so I was delighted to pick up three in the last couple of weeks. First there was Maigret and the Idle burglar, which I spotted in a charity shop in Ledbury while I was staying with my mother, and read and left for her to enjoy. Then My Friend Maigret and Inspector Cadaver emerged from a box of donations at Oxfam looking a little grubby, but then Maigret’s Paris is always a little grubby and down at heel. Anyway, they’ve cleaned up fine, but obviously belonged to a smoker, and the smell of stale cigarettes is hard to get rid of, so I sprinkled bicarbonate of soda and talc between the pages! I left it overnight and shook the books very carefully before starting to read – I did this once and ended up with white powder sprinkled over everything, including me! I was planning on sending these to Mum, but they are still a bit pongy, so if anyone knows any other ways to freshen them up please let me know.

Anyway, that’s quite enough of my wittering – this is supposed to be a post about Maigret who, as I’m sure you all know, was created in 1930 by Belgian author Georges Simenon, who was a prolific writer. He published more than 200 novels and a lot of short stories, including the 75 novels and 28 short stories about Superintendent  Jules Maigret.

Simenon had a colourful private life (in old age he claimed to have slept with 10,000 women), and if his complicated love affairs didn’t guarantee notoriety, his conduct during WW2 did. Throughout the conflict his career continued to flourish and he was suspected of collaboration. After the war he left France for America, where he remained for 10 years: nevertheless, he was investigated, and in 1950 a five-year ban was levied on the publication of new work – the penalty for negotiating film rights for his books with German studios during the Occupation.

But whatever his morals and politics may have been, he wrote a cracking good detective story, and there’s a brilliant interview in the Paris Review archives in which he explains how he wrote. He followed advice from Colette (who rejected his early work while she was employed as a literary editor) and honed his work by paring it to the bone and making it less ‘literary’.  Asked by the interviewer what words he cut, he replied:

 

Adjectives, adverbs, and every word which is there just to make an effect. Every sentence which is there just for the sentence. You know, you have a beautiful sentence—cut it. Every time I find such a thing in one of my novels it is to be cut.

He was a fast worker: he would knock out a novel in 11 days, writing a chapter a day (they are all short books – Simenon didn’t go in for lengthy blockbusters). Then, he says, he would cut, and cut, and cut. At the start he would scan the phone book searching for suitable names for characters, and study his town map ‘to see exactly where things happen’, then make notes on an envelope.  He says:

And the beginning will be always the same; it is almost a geometrical problem: I have such a man, such a woman, in such surroundings. What can happen to them to oblige them to go to their limit? That’s the question. It will be sometimes a very simple incident, anything which will change their lives.

And he adds:

I know nothing about the events when I begin the novel. On the envelope I put only the names of the characters, their ages, their families. I know nothing whatever about the events that will occur later. Otherwise it would not be interesting to me.

Having been a professional writer myself, albeit a journalist and not a novelist, I’m always interested in the process of writing, and I found this insight into Simenon’s methods absolutely fascinating, although it confirmed my opinion that he was a very strange man indeed.

Anyway, as far as the books go I’d recommend them all, but Maigret and the Idle Burglar was my favourite, perhaps because it shows Maigret protecting the interests of a little, unimportant man, and we see him developing a feeling of respect for a man who may have been criminal, but who hurt no-one and was, after his fashion, an artiste, as skilled at his job as Maigret is at his. The novel opens with a phone call in the night, and off Maigret goes to see the battered body discovered in the Bois de Boulogne. It’s well outside his usual remit, and Maigret is supposed to be tracking down a gang of bank robbers, but something about this death disturbs him, and he refuses to write it off as a mere gangland killing.

For in the past he knew the victim, Cuendet, a quiet, inoffensive man who lives with his mother who leads a double life as a burglar, always working alone, targeting the richest houses, in the wealthiest areas, and only plying his trade when the occupants are in residence,  and always ensuring there is nothing to connect him to the robbery, and that no trace of his ill-gotten gains to be found. As Maigret investigates he uncovers more secrets of Cuendet’s life, and he seems to feel an odd kinship and sympathy with the dead man. He knows who the killers are, but he knows they will never be brought to justice, because they move in rich and powerful circles.

The world of policing is not what it was when Maigret was young, and the powers that be are more interested in administration and paperwork than in good, old-fashioned detective work, and they want high profile cases, where prosecution  will be successful.

In My Friend Maigret the Superintendent leaves Paris for Porquerolles, an idyllic island off the Cote d’Azur where a criminal has been killed after boasting that Maigret is a friend – and an old letter from the Superintendent has been found among the man’s possessions. The police believe Marcel Pacaud was killed because of his connection with Maigret – and they fear the Superintendent himself could be at risk. But is he the target? And could any of the island’s lazy, laid-back, pleasure-seeking inhabitants really have the energy and motivation tobe a killer? Maigret is accompanied by Mr Pyke, a Scotland Yard detective who is on a fact finding mission with the French Police, and his presence, together with the Mediterranean heat, seems to inhibit Maigret.

Away from Paris and his usual milieu he is lost and nothing seems to go his way but, as usual, his slow, gentle manner and his aimless questioning belie his sharp mind, and produce the results he needs, whether through luck, or application, it’s hard to say. I always have the feeling that Maigret’s instinct, or intuition, leads him to the truth at a very early stage of the investigations, and that he is just looking to back the knowledge up with facts.

In Inspector Cadaver the Superintendent is off on his travels again, this time to help an examining magistrate whose brother-in-law has been accused of murder after a young man, Albert Retailleau, is found dead on the railway track near his home. So Maigret finds himself in the marshlands of the Vendée, in the small town of Saint-Aubin-les-Marais, picking his way through truth and lies as he tries to separate fact from rumour.

And his efforts to find the murderer are hampered by a former colleague, the ex-inspector Cavre, known to everyone as Inspector Cadaver, who was discharged from the force for corruption and is now working as a private detective.

Georges Simenon

Machines and Murder Mysteries

Another trip to Paris in the company of Chief Superintendent Maigret and an English honeymoon with Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane offered unexpected reading joys when I popped into the library to take some books back. Having tried (and failed) to find anything by Georges Simenon (with the exception of The Hotel Majestic, reviewed here), I was staggered to spot a copy of Maigret and the Ghost on the ‘Returned Books’ shelves. And there, alongside it, was a copy of Dorothy L Sayers’ Busman’s Honeymoon. So I pounced on them, and put them in the magical machine which is supposed to check books in and out. But nothing happened. Nix. Nada. Zilch. Fortunately we still have real people working as librarians, as well the machines, so I appealed for help, only to be told the books did not actually come from Tamworth... For one terrible moment I thought I would have to leave empty-handed, but it turned out there was no problem and once the assistant had fiddled around on the computer back I went to the machine, scanned in the card and books – and hey presto, the books are mine for the next few weeks.

Back home of course, I had to read them immediately, ignoring the Books in Progress and Ninepins, the latest novel from Rosy Thornton (sorry Rosy – you’re next, I promise!)

The Simenon, as ever, was wonderful. In this one Inspector Lognon – known as Grumpy to his colleagues – is shot in the street outside the apartment of a beautiful young woman where, apparently, he has spent the night. Before losing consciousness the wounded detective whispers the word ‘ghost’. By the time Chief Superintendent Maigret appears on the scene the beautiful young woman has disappeared, and no-one knows if Lognon was working on a case...

On the other side of the street is the home of wealthy art wealthy art collector Norris Jonker and his glamorous wife Mirella, but routine questioning convinces Maigret that the couple are not what they seem, and that the facts gathered so far may also have another interpretation. As usual the chief superintendent uncovers the truth in his usual methodical way, painstakingly fitting the pieces of the jigsaw together, aided by a dose of intuition based on his vast knowledge of people and they way behave and react, especially when under pressure. He himself remains cool, calm and polite, supervising his team as they check out every lead and examine every detail, however small and unimportant it may be – and he refuses to let himself be rattled or pushed around by people with money or position.

I particularly enjoyed the fact that his wife plays a larger role in this novel, providing help for the injured policeman’s carping, hypochondriac wife, and collecting vital information as she does so. All in all this was a really satisfying read.

Busman’s Holiday was excellent – it is the final, and I think, the best of the books featuring crime novelist Harriet Vane. I've written about Lord Peter Wimsey before in a review of The Nine Tailors (here), which I enjoyed immensely - but I always prefer the stories with Harriet Vane.  Here, she and Lord Peter are finally married and set off for their honeymoon at Talboys, a beautiful old house in the village where Harriet lived as a child. The sleuthing aristocrat has bought the house for her as a wedding gift and they decide to spend a quiet honeymoon there, away from the prying eyes of the press. But nothing goes as planned: when they arrive (accompanied by the incomparable Bunter and crates of vintage port), the house is shut up and the owner, who has told no-one of the sale, has disappeared... then he turns up dead, in the cellar, and the newly-weds find themselves in the spotlight as a murder investigation gets under way.

The dead man turns out to have been a thoroughly nasty piece of work, and trying to establish how he died and who killed him proves extraordinarily complicated as the plot twists and turns, and there are plenty of suspects, including the dead man’s niece, a policeman who was being blackmailed by the victim, and a gardener who was owed money by the dead man but has a cast-iron alibi.

Peter and Harriet set about solving the crime, aided and abetted by police inspector Kirk, who is as fond of literary quotes and allusions as the couple themselves, and there is a cast of local ‘characters’ with the most wonderfully apt names - the sweep is Mr Puffett, the niece is Miss Twitterton, which tells you exactly what she is like.

This novel is particularly interesting because it opens with a series of letters and diary entries from those who know Peter and Harriet, giving their view of the couple and the marriage, and it ends with an exploration of the effects of bringing a killer to justice. We see Lord Peter tortured by the knowledge that by catching the murderer he himself must carry responsibility for man’s death, and that knowledge is difficult to cope with. 

Rediscovering Maigret

Notre Dame, which has nothing to with the story, but last time
I went  to Paris we ate lunch in a cafe near Shakespeae and Company
and this was the view, and it makes me happy to look at it.

Well, here I am, still in Paris, in spirit, if not in body – but it’s not really the fault of the Hemingways because I had put in a request at the library for any of Simenon’s Maigret books and, just as I was reading The Paris Wife, back came The Hotel Majestic, along with The Fountain Overflows, by Rebecca West. Then, when I went to collect them, I spotted Frank Barker’s Miss Hargreaves, which is fantastic, but I will write about that another day since I am sticking with France for the time being.

It’s a long time since I read a Maigret novel, and I’d forgotten how well Georges Simenon conjures up the sleazy Parisian underworld. Here the blonde, French wife of a wealthy American industrialist is found dead in a locker in the staff cloakroom, down in the basement of an upmarket hotel. She has been strangled, but in her bag is a gun... Investigations reveal she has a past, for before her marriage Mimi was a nightclub dancer and had an affair with the chef who finds the body... Then there is her husband who wants to marry the governess who helps care for the couple’s young son...

Soon, the body of the night porter is discovered: he too has been strangled and stuffed into a locker at the hotel. But never fear, Superintendent Jules Maigret, Head of the Special Squad of the Judicial Police, is on the case, with his pipe, his bowler hat, and his deceptively slow manner, which belies his astonishing powers of observation and deduction. His queries take him from Paris to Cannes as he moves through a world of bars, nightclubs, and the hidden part of hotels where the staff work long, hard hours, unseen by the guests. Among those he questions are the dead woman’s former friends, Gigi, a raddled, drug addicted prostitute, and kind-hearted Charlotte, who has grown too plump to dance and now lives with Prosper Donge, Mimi’s old lover. Donge himself, described by everyone as ‘a good man’, becomes the chief suspect, but Maigret is not convinced and runs into conflict with the magistrate in charge of the case.

It’s difficult to go into too much detail without giving the ending away – and that would never do.

Suffice to say that after all the questioning Maigret works out the who and the why, though personally I am positive he identifies the murderer right at the outset (something to do with a shifty look, perhaps). Even at this early stage he may have some inkling of the motive, but he needs to prove his case, so he sets about uncovering the truth. He can give those who don’t know him the impression that he is a bit of a bungler, doing things almost by chance, without any particular purpose, and he was sneaking in vital questions in a casual way long before Columbo got in on the act.“Looking at him, you would have thought he was making an amateurish study of how a grand hotel functions,” writes Simenon at one point. But Maigret is actually very methodical: intuition may play a part in the way he works, but he knows he needs facts to prove a case, and I think he believes the end justifies the means, so if he doesn’t always do things by the book it doesn’t matter. He is utterly ruthless about catching criminals and ensuring they are punished for doing wrong.  

I always imagine Maigret must look like
his creator Georges Simenon - perhaps
 it's the pipe that does it.

Maigret doesn’t immediately strike you as being a clever psychologist, but he is. He understands what makes people tick, likes to see them in their own environment, and is able to predict the way they will behave. At times he is disarmingly simple and friendly – a technique he uses in the hopes that people will let information slip in an unguarded moment. (Columbo does that as well. I’m a big fan of Columbo, in case you hadn’t noticed).

 I really enjoyed this. It’s a pacy read, which keeps you guessing all the way through, and even though I’d seen the TV series with Michael Gambon I still couldn’t work out who dunnit. I would read some more, but I think The Hotel Majestic is the only Maigret book that Staffordshire Libaries have in stock.