Et voilà, c’était le dernier roman de Maigret que je n’avais pas encore lu. Et, bonheur, c’en était un très bon ! Restent encore quelques nouvelles mais celles-ci m’ont généralement semblé moins bonnes. J’avais commencé ces lectures suite à la découverte d’un Maigret dans la cave de mes parents. Puis, j’avais été motivé par la lecture d’un article dans le Temps où Nicolas Dufour racontait son été durant lequel « J’ai lu les 75 romans de Maigret (et j’ai déjà envie de les relire) »

Et je termine ces Maigret avec bonheur par cette dernière enquête qui est celle de l’injustice ! Et, par chance, c’est peut-être une des plus emblématique. Ici, les salauds, les malins et malfaisants restent impunis.

Fataliste, Maigret s’en accommode tant bien que mal.

Car c'est sûrement là que réside une des originalités de Maigret. Si le commissaire cherche toujours à comprendre (avec succès, d'ailleurs (et souvent un peu miraculeusement)), les coupables ne sont pas toujours condamnés et parfois, nulle morale, aucun Karma ni justice. Le commissaire hausse les épaules et s'en va. Oui, les assassins, comme dans la vraie vie, restent libres... Parfois ( )

Maigret undertakes an unofficial mission at the request of a judge-friend, whose brother-in-law — a landowner in the marshes of the Vendée — has been the victim of a campaign of anonymous letters accusing him of murder. When Maigret gets to Saint-Aubin-les-Marais he is surprised to find his ex-colleague "Cadavre," now a private eye, getting off the same train and pretending not to see him. Moreover, his hosts don't seem to be exactly happy with the judge's helpful intervention, and are acting very much like a family with something to hide.

As usual, Simenon enjoys the moral ambiguities opened up by taking Maigret out of the official world of regular police work, and he has fun exploring the feuds and power-struggles lurking below the surface of a tranquil agricultural community. Whilst ports are obviously what he does best, his villages are always interesting too, so this is an enjoyable read, even if the actual case is fairly straightforward.

As usual, this wartime publication is set in a kind of generic thirties peacetime, with no mention of current events at all. ( )

The quintessential Maigret. Setting, pace, characters, dialogue, phone conversations (which is one of my very favorite things in any Maigret), people falling due to passions and money, the whole shebang. Missing only one of his usual bagman sidekicks, but he picks a new one up along the way. ( )

I had not read a Maigret novel since my teens - not because I decided not to but because I had not seen any of them. So when I saw this in the library, I decided it is time to get back to the good old inspector.

It is one of the unusual books - it is not set in Paris - instead Maigret is asked for a favor and goes to a small village where the a man had died a few weeks before. It had been ruled as an incident but now rumors are everywhere that it was actually a murder. It would have been an easy enough investigation except that in the train Maigret sees and old colleague, now a PI, that had been kicked off by the police and who had always been a rival of Maigret.

Things do not go exactly as expected, it seems like noone cares about the truth and if his adversary was not there, Maigret probably would have left. But with him there, he pushes to find the truth and we see the life in a small village in France in the 40s - split between the rich and the poor and with more secrets than you would expect in a small village like that one (but then most of the classic mystery novels are like that).

Penguin seems to be publishing the full series in new translations so I think I am going to catch up with the ones they already did and then follow them. Even though they are publishing them in some weird order. ( )

L'inspecteur Maigret est appelé en province pour enquêter sur la mort, accidentelle semble-t-il, d'un jeune homme. A son arrivée, il réalise qu'un second inspecteur, rival de longue date, est également sur le coup, dans ce petit village où le brouillard étouffe les secrets, les trahisons et les compromissions. Un bon policier, bien mené, mais sont j'ai malheureusement trop tôt deviné la résolution. ( )