by Georges Simenon
ISBN: 978-0-241-18847-7
First published 1944
170 pages
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Cover photograph: Harry Gruyaert / Magnum Photos
Translated by William Hobson
5 / 5 Stars
Maigret doesn’t so much solve crime as allow the truth to seep from the characters involved and therefore the ‘crime’ to solve itself…
Often he is no more than a presence, a brooding, looming, massive presence. Uttering nothing, keeping his own counsel, or making short sharp statements, designed to not to uncover the truth, but to broil, cajole and to terrify the characters’ minds.
Here, Madame Naud is screaming inside, wanting to tell Maigret everything, but she cannot for fear of incriminating herself. Her husband, naive and lacking common sense, is not aware. Her daughter young but becoming a woman, is well aware.
Maigret watches the family, and through him we gradually learn of the family’s life, and a dreadful death.
And now the unexpected comes in the form of Inspector Cadaver, a once colleague of Maigret, now a private investigator. Maigret’s rival has a different, and a wholly more suitable explanation of the recent death on the railway line.
Who is correct?
Will the guilty party be brought to justice?
And does, in fact, Maigret want to see justice done? Or is there a higher order that should be followed, in order not to ruin more lives?
The Eclectic Book Review 