Wasn't it thoughtful of M. Simenon to write so very many books? Something in the order of 500, I think? I wonder how many are in print these days and how many translated into English? I had to look, and according to Library Thing I have fourteen of his novels on hand. In actuality I know I have more as I have been terribly remiss about adding new books to my LT account. I have read both his Maigret novels and his romans durs and have enjoyed both.
All this to say I did indeed start reading Georges Simenon's The Saint-Fiacre Affair and it clicked with me. Happily I am immersed in the goings-on in the village of Moulins where Inspector Maigret was born. It's been a good thirty years since he's been back. It's something of a fluke that he is here now as he received a note, unsigned: "I wish to inform you that a crime will be committed at the church of Saint-Fiacre during the first mass on All Souls' Day". Anyone else might have thought it a silly joke and pitched the note into the wastepaper basket, but Maigret is back to see what turns up.
Curiously there is a death. Now living in genteel poverty, the Countess of Saint-Fiacre, is at her place in the church at the first mass of the day. She is alone. No one has come near her, no shot has rung out and there is not a mark on her body. Yet she failed to stand up at the end of the service and when someone went to tap her, she quite literally fell over. Collapsed in a heap. The life gone from her. And all right under Maigret's very nose!
And now comes the best part of the novel, which is moving swiftly along. The dissection of the crime. It's even more interesting with Maigret's reflections on the time and place and more, the history of the village and this esteemed resident. He can pull out of his memory bits and pieces of the place and the Countess. My teaser is just that--Maigret's memory of the Countess from when he was a young boy:
"He knew the chateau better than anyone. He had to take only a few steps to see the estate manager's house, his birthplace."
"And perhaps it was the memories that troubled him so much! Especially the memory of the Countess of Saint-Fiacre as he had known her: a young woman who had personified, to the working-class little boy that he was, femininity, grace, nobility . . ."
But the Countess is rather different now than what he remembers. Who would want her dead? Her young lover? Her son? And is it murder even? The body shows only signs of a possible embolism and she did have heart troubles. The first clue is her missal, now gone from the pew in church . . . Maigret is on the case. I am sure he will connect the dots soon enough. And if memory serves me right, he might have a glass of wine or two along the way.
It's been a while since I spent time in France (or America as the case may be) with Maigret/Simenon. I've read The Bar on the Seine, Red Lights (one of his roman durs), and Maigret in Holland. There may well have been the other odd book here or there that I read but never wrote about here. Now I think I will gather up all my other Simenon's (that are not packed away in my bins) and leave them bedside. With less than 150 pages I think I will make quick work of this mystery and might have a little binge. Besides I feel like staying in France for a while . . . Maybe it is just a nice change of scenery that I need to get me out of my reading slump.