My Friend Maigret by Georges Simenon

My friend Maigret by Georges Simenon

Belgian crime fiction

Original title – Mon Ami Maigret

Translator – Shaun Whiteside

Source – Personal copy

It has been a while since I did a Maigret I may do one next week for 19562 if it gets to the library in time. But I read this a couple of weeks ago after buying it in my local Waterstones I had been eyeing the new small clothbound classics perfect for a coat pocket to have on hand any time. I’ve written about Simenon we all know how much he has written the exact number of books is quite sure as there is a feeling he may have used various other pseudonyms over his career and publishers. But penguin books are bring all the books out. They have done new translations of all the Maigrets this is the tenth book In the Maigret series I have reviewed.

Did the Englishman imagine that the French police had powerful cars to take them to crime scenes?

He must have thought, in any case, that the inspectors of the Police Judiciaire had unlimited travelling funds. Had Maigret been right? Alone, he would have settled for a couchette. At the Gare de Lyon, he hesitated. Then, at the last minute, he took two berths in a sleeping compartment.

It was magnificent. In the corridor, they met very wealthy travellers with impressive luggage. An elegant crowd, laden with flowers, was accompanying a film star to the train.

‘It’s the Blue Train, Maigret murmured, as if by way of apology.

Strange I mention Poirot and here is another link he has a novel set on The Blue train

This book focuses on someone who claims to have been a friend of Maigret  He was called Pacaud but was using the name Marcellin and had been living in the south of France. As Maigret is informed of this death in the south of France he may be connected to the victim. This event happens to coincide with the visit to Paris of an inspector from Scotland Yard who has come to observe and watch Maigret at work, I loved the way he is described you get that city gent image all that is missing is a black umbrella wrapped up. Mr Pyke makes Maigret feel uneasy. The pair head down to the south of France.  The fact Maigret hadn’t been working on anything much made Maigret wary of his English counterpart. But the trip and their case make the English man give his opinions and the two find out why this man died and how it is tied up with a young painter called De Greef and, a fake painting signed as a Van Gogh he had painted and sold. We follow the events as the two inspectors try to find the truth. It is strange to see Mairget with an equal in Pyke as they work to find who of the suspects was the killer?

‘I think, Mr Pyke, that in England investigations are carried out in a very orderly fashion, isn’t that right?

‘It depends. For example, after a crime that was committed two years ago near Brighton, one of my colleagues spent eleven weeks in an inn, spending his days angling and his evenings drinking ale with the locals.’ It was exactly what Maigret would have liked to be doing, and which he wasn’t doing because of that same Mr Pyke! By the time Lechat came in, he was in a bad mood.

The two have very different styles of  investigating

I am a fan of Maigret and this is another book that takes him out of Paris like some of the others have done. But it also has the curve ball of Inspector Pyke he is described as a stereotypical policeman from Scotland Yard at the time  (I was reminded of Gideon of the Yard, but this was before that book and film were written )  There is a sense early on in the book of the smartly dressed Pyke getting under the skin of Maigret when he goes home with him there is an atmosphere but as the book moves on and the Englishman starts to show he is Maigret equal the two grow closer as the crime shift Maigrets focus the similarity in the two men comes to light as they get closer to finding out who killed Marcellin and what did he know? I like the change of scene to Cote d Azur, he had used the old connection to Maigret before as a hook for the book but the introduction of an equal reminds me of Murder on the Links where Poirot goes head to head with a French policeman he has viewed as a  rival, but in this novel, it is more a working relationship than rivals   Have you read this?

Winstons score – B solid Maigret with the curve ball of Pyke to his usual team