A Work in Progress

The Cellars of the Majestic, Georges Simenon

I've not read a lot of Inspector Maigret mysteries, but the more I do the more I like them and the more keen I am to reach for a new one.  With each new story I like to fill out my mental picture of M. Maigret just a little more.  I know Georges Simenon wrote literally hundreds of books and probably a good lot of them were Maigret stories, so I read them randomly and maybe a little haphazardly since I am not sure how many are in and out of print, but it seems not to matter at all that I choose without rhyme or reason and based solely on the appeal of a certain setting or event.

In the case of The Cellars of the Majestic (originally published as Les Caves de Majestic in 1942 and this Penguin Classic reissue translated by Howard Curtis) it is the setting of a glamorous Parisian hotel that made me pick up the book.  It's interesting that the war would have been in full force yet you would have not a clue to that fact in the text.  The world Simenon writes about is really quite insular.  While you get a sense of the social mores of the time and a good sense of setting, it could almost have been set in any period really.   

First, the crime.  The wife of a wealthy industrialist, a guest of the Hotel Majestic, has been found strangled and stuffed in a locker in the cellar of the hotel where the staff work.  The cellar is a beehive of activity.  Staff coming and going from the outside world and preparing for their shifts or resting in between busy moments.  You are aware of a full hotel above by the constant comings and goings of maids and waiters and everyone who serves the guests.  UP and down the trays go filled with food and drinks moved by pulleys between floors.  The woman is not just wealthy but she is American.  And she has no reason to be in the cellars where the staff work and spend their time.  Or does she?

"'In the basement, but not among the staff . . . that's the troubling thing about this case . . . Try to imagine a guest, a wealthy woman, staying at the Majestic with her husband, her son, a nurse and a governess . . . In the suite that costs more than a thousand francs a day . . . At six in the morning she's strangled, not in her room, but in the basement locker room . . . In all likelihood, that's where the crime was committed . . . What was the woman doing in the basement?  Who could have lured her down there, and how? . . . Especially at an hour when people of that kind are usually fast asleep . . .'"

It's Prosper Donge who finds the woman and much is made about his living situation.  He lives with a woman/wife named Charlotte though the two seem like two ships passing in the night-she arriving home when he is ready to leave.  Much is made about his journey to work on that particular damp, cold morning, and the flat tire that he discovers and is noted by a policeman just as he is turning the corner at the Champs-Élysées.  Prosper Donge is fairly remarkable in his looks with his flaming red hair and the ruddy complexion so easy to blush in people of his coloring.  Much is made about the fact that thanks to the flat tire he arrives ten minutes later than normal.  It is his job to prepare the guest's coffees and send them up and down on the dumb waiters. 

For some odd reason, and what exactly made him do it, he happened to open a locker not his own.  Number 89.  It is inside that locker that the body of Mrs. Clark is found.  Enter Inspector Maigret who now must interview all the staff who might have seen something significant, or had a chance to commit the crime.  Odder still, though, M. Maigret seems to ignore Prosper Donge.  All day long Maigret is observing and questioning in those cellars.  And all day long Prosper prepares the coffees, going about his work, and all the while perplexed why he, the man who found the victim, has not yet been questioned. 

This is a curious case, one that will take Maigret all the way from damp, cold Paris to sunny Cannes, filled with the scent of mimosas and surely it must be February as some festivities happen to be going on when he arrives.  Carnival?  It was never explicitly noted, but it was quite inviting despite Maigret's business with a murder investigation.  As always, lots of potential suspects, a fair few red herrings and a very satisfying resolution of the crime.  It was all there laid out for the reader, but I didn't see it coming.

As for Maigret?  His wife likes to call him Monsieur Maigret, which she often does when joking.  I like that quite often while he is investigating and he runs into a wall of difficulties he takes himself off to a bar for a drink.  Something new I didn't know about Maigret?  He and Madame Maigret have no children, something that he finds very regrettable.  The last Simenon book I read was The Saint-Fiacre Affair a couple years back, which I quite enjoyed (I need to tally up my Maigret reads).  I want all these lovely new Penguin reissues.  Now, which one to read next?

The Saint-Fiacre Affair, Georges Simenon

I do like it when a crime novel takes the reader somewhere unusual.  A mystery with a twist that is something off the usual beaten path.  With such a prolific writer like Georges Simenon, who wrote more than seventy Inspector Maigret novels and many many more psychological crime novels that stand on their own, you tend to expect something more formulaic and expected.  I was pleasantly surprised and pleased with The Saint-Fiacre Affair (La Messe de Saint-Fiacre published originally in 1932 and translated by Shaun Whiteside in 2014).  It is a mystery that unravels itself with Inspector Maigret almost an innocent bystander.  In this Maigret outing he is a witness to a crime.  Actually he was invited to witness a crime!  By the end of the story he was beginning to become a little bit peeved, as though "he had been left out of the play"!

"Never in his career had Maigret felt so uneasy.  And it was probably the first time that he had a very clear sense that he was not a match for the situation."

Imagine a detective admitting that to himself!  But I think I am getting a little ahead of myself.

You know that Inspector Maigret is an official policeman, a detective in the Police Judiciare in Paris.  One day he receives a note, written most meticulously telling him:

"I wish to inform you that a crime will be committed at the church of Sain-Fiacre during the first mass on All Souls' Day."

It would not be surprising that any other policeman would have simply dismissed such a note as a joke.  But there is something particular about Saint-Fiacre.  Saint-Fiacre--Matignon--Moulins.  He knows this little village intimately as you see, he was born there.  Saint-Fiacre is not just a village, but it is also a family name.  The family who gave their name to this village.  And the place where Maigret's father had been estate manager of the chateau for some thirty years.  It has perhaps been that long since Maigret has been to Moulins.  And this note, with its promise of a crime to be committed is enough to draw him back.

The crime?  But, is it a crime?  Maigret goes to early mass on All Souls Day to witness a crime.  And there is a death.  And a body.  And he does witness this death.  But there is no killer.  So, the facts:

The Countess of Saint-Fiacre was in attendance of the first mass of the day.  She sits alone in her pew, missal in hand, following the service.  And at the end . . . 'ite miss est' . . . 'the mass has been said."  And she continues to sit there, head in hands.  She is motionless, does not get up.  The rest of the congregants file out, the sacristan snuffs out the candles, and still she sits there.  Maigret moves towards her, taps her shoulder and she slumps over all of a sudden as though nothing at all had been holding her up. 

The Countess Saint-Fiacre.  Dead!  No gunshot.  No one (save Maigret) touched her, no one even passed by her.  It would seem her death is not even caused by poison, which would show up in the blood.  Death by heart attack?  She is an older woman.  So not a death at all?  But chance?  Natural causes.  So has there even been a crime?

The circumstances?  A few details that are worth noting.  The Countess has one son who no longer resides at the chateau.  She is a widow with a penchant for younger men.  Younger men, like her secretary.  As a child Maigret thought of her as a model of good behavior, the epitome of "femininity, grace and nobility".  But after the death of the Count, you know how it goes with these women whose sons leave for school and they turn forty and then forty-five, and then . . .  Well, a series of secretaries. Male secretaries.  And the chateau is mortgaged up to its rafters. 

The suspects?  Who has something to gain by the death of the Countess?  There are five individuals who gravitated towards the Countess.  Five men who might just have a reason to want her dead.

The dissolute son who lives in Paris with his Russian mistress and who has conveniently just arrived with the intention of asking for more money to pay off debts.  The secretary who was also her lover.  The estate manager who has devoted his life to the running of the estate and now watches as it runs into ruin.  His son, who has worked with his father and has advanced solely by merit and hard work, and who had possibly filled the position now taken up by the secretary as the Countess's 'intimate'.  And the parish priest whose ardent faith may have driven him to extremes, to avoid cause for scandal in the village.   

Clues or red herrings to consider: The missing missal, which was in the Countess's hands but which has disappeared.  A newspaper clipping. The fact that a crime committed in a church must be reconsecrated by the bishop.  Has there been a crime or not, and how does it affect the status of the church.

For such a slender novel (just under 150 pages) and in such a small village and a crime that might not even be a crime, what a wonderfully dramatic story.  One that Maigret attends to without actually solving as such.  A most illuminating dinner party takes place at the chateau that will shed light on the death of the Countess, with the promise of perhaps another murder.  Maigret may only be a witness of sorts, but he holds the final puzzle piece as is only to be expected. 

Like Miss Marple, Inspector Maigret is one of the greats.  I forgot how much I like him and enjoy Simenon's stories.  There is more Maigret here (with links to the other stories by Simenon I have read--including a Paris mystery and one he solved in Holland).  I hope to raid  my pile of French mysteries again very soon. 

Maigret in Holland by Georges Simenon

A week or so ago I shared a teaser from Georges Simenon's Maigret in Holland (Un Crime en Hollande translated by Geoffrey Sainsbury) and just as the TLS describes Simenon's style, so I found this wonderful and wonderfully atmospheric mystery.  It's short, straightforward, not terribly complicated plotwise yet filled with enough red herrings and potential suspects to keep readers guessing and no political or historical markers which give the story a timeless quality even though it was published in 1940.  His geographical descriptions of the coastal town of Delfzijl, however, are very inviting and part of the draw for me for this story.  And Maigret is entirely likable.  While the story may be morally ambiguous (certainly Simenon doesn't interject his own opinions), Maigret himself is quite sympathetic.  Actually he's sympathetic but he has a certain mischievous streak to him at times, too, which I find amusing.

I've not read many of Simenon's Maigret novels, but of the few I have read there always seems to be a no-nonsense approach to the writing and plotting.  Crime novels seem to be the perfect place to show a society's ills, reveal its shortcomings.  You can tell a lot about a society from the crimes that are committed and by whom.  And it's often not confined to the seedy underbelly of a city.  Sometimes the detective or crime-solver is just as flawed as the criminals.  But with Maigret you get a crime, you get a piecing together of a puzzle and a little traditional sleuthing.  Maigret, however, relies as much on his gut feeling as on his close attention to the details of the crime, his observations and sorting through the clues to make it all fit together to get a satisfying resolution.  As for Maigret's life--I can't tell you much.  He smokes a pipe, likes to indulge a bit occasionally on a good meal and a few glasses of spirits.  I know from my other reading that he is married and has a good relationship with his wife, but Simenon doesn't spend a lot of time on the personal (except perhaps to draw a picture of the suspects and their motivations).

I think what's important in the Maigret stories is presenting a problem, in this case murder, looking at it from all angles, sorting the clues and the personalities and the motives and facts and then solving the crime.  A very basic, traditional mystery--but presented in a wholly entertaining way.  Maigret has been called to Holland from Paris to aid in the investigation of a murder.  A local man has been killed and the most obvious suspect happens to be a fellow Frenchman.  He very inconveniently found himself holding the gun which killed the man thereby putting himself under suspicion.  Curiously he had just given a lecture on the responsibility of criminals for their actions and has his own ideas of who killed the man and sets out his own ideas on who the killer is and how the crime was committed.  He's not the only potential suspect of course. 

The murdered man was a former sailor now settled down with a cultured and conventional wife.  He had a penchant for attractive young women (perhaps he settled down too soon without sowing his wild oats in full?), though only dabbling really.  He happened to have been dabbling with a local girl who is known for her flirtatiousness.  As a matter of fact a young cadet who was one of the murdered man's students is in love with her.  Then there is the murdered man's sister-in-law who has just finished her studies to become a lawyer who seems forever in a state of taciturnity, and the owner of a ship who's cap has inexplicably been discovered in the dead man's bathtub. 

No mystery worth its salt is complete without a hoard of secrets and lies.  So many suspects, so many motives and opportunities and a sprinkling of clues--love letters, a sailor's cap where it shouldn't be, a stray cigar butt and the light from a lighthouse which illuminates more than just the coastline.  Maigret is up to the challenge, however, and in true Porot-like fashion he re-creates the murder scene with all the players in place and deconstructs the crime.  The Dutch detectives are no match for Maigret's sleuthing prowess despite his 'unofficial' capacity in the case.

Since I read this as much for the setting as for the mystery, I would be remiss if I didn't share a few of the interesting cultural bits that I came across--keeping in mind of course that the book was published in 1940, so perhaps life has changed considerably in the passing years.

***

"The schnapps was drawn from a porcelain tap with brass fittings.  It was that which gave the place its pervading odor, as it did every other café in the Netherlands, and which was so very different from any café in France."

***

"The evening before, he had dinner at the table next to the professor's.  But now three places had been laid on the round table in the middle of the room.  The tablecloth was snowy white and the creases had not yet gone flat.  Moreover, three glasses had been set for each person, and that was a thing done only on grand occasions in Holland."

***

"In Holland we never drink with meals, only afterward.  In the course of the evening--that is, at large repceptions--they serve a small glass of wine with the cigars . . . Another point on which we differ from you: we never put bread on he table."

***

"It's the very embodiment of cleanliness and order."

***

I've wanted to read more Maigret for ages and this was only a brief foray into his world.  I'll be back for more.  Maigret in Holland is doing double duty for me.  It's not only the next spot to be filled in my Vintage Bingo card (three more to go to fill my row and get 'bingo'--this one is for the 'one mystery set other than the US or England slot) but is my last 'formal' book in my summer Reading the Netherlands project.  I've got a couple of books left that will spill over into the end of the year, but I'll be wrapping things up this weekend  in anticipation of other reading plans to see me through the end of the year.  Cath has kindly written a last post, which we'll be sharing tomorrow and I have a few loose ends to tie up over the weekend.  I might end up with one of those spillover books in my travel bag next week, or maybe another Maigret mystery or maybe another book to help fill in my Bingo card.  So many good choices.

Simenon's Red Lights

I really like Georges Simenon.  It took me a long time to get around to reading any of his work (another case of writing off an author I thought would not appeal to me), but with each new book I pick up, I think I like him a little more.  Last year I was introduced to Inspector Maigret (does anyone know how to correctly pronounce his name by the way?), who I thought was cool, calm and collected as well as quite sympathetic for a policeman.  I liked his manner of detecting, which included more than a few stops at the local bar for a pernod, but don't worry he never overdid it.  And I love that dark, gritty feel to the mystery as well, which Simenon seems to excel at.

I believe Simenon wrote hundreds of novels (though am not sure how many have been translated into English and how many of those are still in print), often dashing them off in a matter of weeks, he achieved a certain acclaim in his lifetime.  Most seem to be very slender, quick reads.  It was not a Maigret mystery that I turned to, but one of his romans durs, which if I understand correctly means "serious novel".  I picked up Red Lights at the library, and this time it was a quick and easy, but still very satisfying read.  The New York Review of Books has published a handful of Simenon's romans durs, which I now plan on trying to get my hands on.  Each has an excellent introduction, Red Lights intro is written by Anita Brookner.    

"In his heyday he was read largely but not exclusively by the people for whom he preferred to write, the petites gens of his own early milieu, who would understand and appreciate not only his pared-down style but also his intimate fatalism, before such a condition was codified by more sophisticated writers as alienation.  The unease which underlies this condition is already present in Simenon's novels, and is most potently expressed not in the detective stories featuring Inspector Maigret but in the romans durs, the hard novels of which he was more proud." 

I was thinking that his romans durs would be very noir-ish, and they are to some extent.  Red Lights was certainly unsentimental, though for the two main characters there is some sort of redemption at the end. 

"The formula is simple but subtle.  A life will go wrong, usually because of an element in the protagonist's make-up which impels him to self-destruct, to willfully seek disgrace, exclusion, ruin in his search for a fulfillment and a fatal freedom which take on an aura of destiny."

"In a genre which has since been exploited, but never truly replicated, Simenon examines this phenomenon time after time and in a variety of settings.  A man (and it is invariably a man) will suddenly act out of character and for no apparent reason.  This divergence from his normal pattern of behavior will lead him to abandon safety, all caution, in the interest of that illusory freedom.  This momentary rapture, against which he has no defense, will ensure his downfall, but the rash act will empower him in ways he has perhaps sought, almost unknowingly, all his life."

This is certainly true of Steve Hogan in Red Lights.  Written in 1953 while Simenon was living in the United States, he describes 1950s America very convincingly.  It's Labor Day weekend, and Steve and Nancy Hogan are ready to set off from New York City to Maine to pick up their two children from summer camp.  They meet after work for a drink before they set off.  There's the slightest bit of animosity between Steve and Nancy.  Nancy has the better job in the City and often has to work late, which means Steve needs to get home quickly after work so the babysitter can leave on time.  Everyone but Steve seems to have some place important to get to.  

When Steven and Nancy are finally on the road, Steve makes an excuse to stop at one of the roadside bars, of which there is an abundance, for a quick drink.  One bar turns to two.  Nancy knows what's behind his excuses and knows what he's after.  He's obviously no stranger to drink.  She threatens to take the car herself and leave him and pick up the children herself, but he takes the key out of the ignition, so she can't.  When he returns ten, fifteen, maybe it's even been twenty minutes later he finds the car empty and a note saying Nancy has gone on to Maine by bus, and she'll see him later.  Several drinks gone, he's been at the rye and now he gives in to his urges and goes on a total bender.  It's what he calls "the tunnel", giving in to the dark side of drink. 

He meets up with an escaped prisoner from Sing Sing.  In a strange way he feels like he's found a kindred spirit, a real man.  Maybe it's the drink talking, but Steve rambles on and on to him about his wife and his failed life.  The next day, however, he finds himself on the side of the road, the car with a flat tire and his money and ID gone and little recollection about what really happened the night before.  When he calls the children's camp looking for Nancy, he discovers she never arrived.

Without giving away any more of the plot, I will say this is a great little novel, which gives a peak at cultural and social attitudes ca. 1950 America.  It was wonderfully atmospheric but in a different way than the Maigret novels.  And while it is an easy read I don't want to give the impression that the story is simple or without depth.  I'll definitely be reading more Simenon.

The Bar on the Seine

I had a feeling I was going to like Inspector Maigret, and after reading Georges Simenon's The Bar on the Seine, I know I'll be looking for more of his mysteries.  The Bar on the Seine is a slender little novel that can easily be read in just a sitting or two, though I spread Inspector Maigret's case out over the course of a week or so.  Perhaps Simenon did this on purpose, but one mystery isn't enough to know everything about Maigret.  As a matter of fact I really don't know much about him at all.  I have a feeling his character is revealed slowly over time with each new mystery to be solved, and as there are over 70 Maigret mysteries that's a lot of time to develop his character more fully.  I can say Maigret is cool, calm and collected and surprisingly sympathetic for a policeman. 

Simenon's mystery is quite different than the usual British cozy mysteries that I'm used to.  This story was much grittier and darker than your run-of-the-mill cozy.  Written in 1932, it seems like a precursor to some of today's popular crime novels.  He writes with a realism that gave me a good sense of place.  I could visualize the seedy Parisian bars and the weekend trips to the country.  I could feel the hot summer rain, and  I could almost taste the Pernod that the characters seemed to be drinking incessantly.  I've read that his work lent itself easily to film adaptations and am curious now to see something. 

As for The Bar on the Seine?  It begins on a lovely June day.  "The sunshine as thick as syrup in the quiet streets of the left bank.  And everything--the people's faces, the countless familiar sounds of the street--exuded a joy to be alive."  Unfortunately for one man, a criminal Maigret put behind bars, his sunny days are about to come to an end.  Maigret must give Lenoir the bad news that his appeal has failed and he is set to be executed the following morning.  It's with regret that Maigret bears this bad news.  Only twenty-two, Lenoir has been a gangster for a good chunk of his short life.  Not only does Maigret regret his youth, but Lenoir has an air of self-confidence about him that Maigret admires (I told you he was sympathetic).

Set to go on his summer holiday, Maigret must postpone it and send off Madame Maigret alone to her sister in Alsace.  In his last hours Lenoir alludes to a crime he saw committed years ago, one that he and an accomplice took advantage of.  When he witnessed a body being dumped in a canal, he blackmailed the murderer.  Only the murderer was wily and Lenoir not yet a seasoned criminal, so he lost his easy source of income when the murderer moved house and they lost him.  Then just before Lenoir was arrested again he spotted the murderer at the guingette à deux sous.  While Lenoir took the blame, so his accomplice could evade jail, he feels differently about the murderer walking free.            

With only the name of the bar to go one, Maigret must find a murderer.  His inquiries about the bar come up empty, but by chance Maigret overhears a man talking about the guingette à deux sous.  About a mock wedding that is going to take place there, so Maigret follows him.  In a rather roundabout way Maigret manages to find the place, a little country bar frequented by a group of friends each weekend where they drink, dance and generally make merry.  Maigret blends in with the group and befriends an Englishman who forms one of the party.  One murder leads to a second, which seems at first to be unrelated to Maigret's case. 

Maigret will need to wade through blackmail, jealousy, lies, and infidelities to sort out these murders.  As this was only my first Maigret mystery, I'm not sure I have a clear picture if this is how he normally works, but this wasn't really a straightforward police procedural.  There are clues, but they're not presented in the same way as say an Agatha Christie mystery.  Maigret spends most of his time interacting with the suspects, and he more or less works alone.  He's sort of laid back about it all, but still very clever and in charge of what's going on around him.  I'm very impressed by Maigret and will be reading more.  Now I just need to decide whether I should go back and start at the beginning or just pick and choose at whim.  Any suggestions from seasoned Maigret readers?