I'm going to tell you a secret. I prefer Georges Simenon's Inspector Maigret over Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot. I mean I like Poirot (and I love Agatha and her Miss Marple), but Maigret just has a certain something about him. A certain finesse. Poirot can just be a little too quirky (or maybe I was just vastly put off by Kenneth Branagh's characterization of him and that very scary moustache he sported).
But now Maigret. I'm not sure what it is about him. Maybe it is the way he approaches the cases he is investigating. He is not superior. He has good working relations with his colleagues. Maybe it is the way barely into a new crime and investigation he will stop off at a favorite or local bistro for a nip of something. This time it was marc. He even mused in Maigret's Mistake (originally published in 1953 and newly translated by Howard Curtis in 2017) how a case might be accompanied by a certain spirit or beer or wine. I like how he knows Paris and is truly a citizen of the neighborhoods.
Or maybe it is the affectionate nature of his relationship with Madame Maigret. (And it always seem to be Madame--Maigret). I need to read one of the stories where she features more directly. In this story at the start she is looking out the window early one November morning noting what the people walking by on their way to work are wearing. On this particular day she tells him he must take his heavy overcoat.
But I guess what I most love about the Maigret mysteries is the economy with which Simenon writes and the way Maigret investigates. He gathers facts, he does a lot of footwork and asks questions and interviews. He does much of the work and does not simply sit in his office and send out his partners to collect facts. And despite the economy of the prose, Simenon manages to evoke a certain atmosphere and give a sense of being quite solidly in Paris of that era.
So, this time out, a woman has been murdered. Her cleaning lady found her dead in her apartment, shot in the head but no gun in sight. What is interesting about this case . . . She is a woman of a certain type, who has come from one of the poorer arrondissements yet is now living in one of the more bourgeois apartments in one of the better parts of the city. And even more interesting, she does not work but seems to be a 'kept woman'. But by whom? She does not get many visitors, save a musician who is possibly a love interest, but not a man who can afford to keep a woman in a place such as where she was found.
Oh, how much to tell you about Louise Filon, the murdered woman? And even more--the killer! We only get to know her after death. But it is only through knowing that mystery man in her life do we understand about the killing and even more about human nature. Maigret, and the reader alike, have certain ideas of who would kill and why a woman would be killed in this situation. But take care, you might be mistaken. I thoroughly enjoyed this Maigret novel. It is perhaps my favorite so far. It was a pleasure to peel back the layers like an onion and seeing the murder come into focus. I tip my hat to you Inspector Maigret. Or better, I clink my glass of marc with yours!