Fri 29 Jun 2018
GEORGES SIMENON – Maigret in New York. Inspector Maigret #27. Penguin, softcover, 2016; translated by Linda Coverdale. First published as Maigret à New York, Paris, 1947. First British publication: H. Hamilton, hardcover, 1979. First published in the US as Maigret in New York’s Underworld, Doubleday, hardcover, 1955. Also published in the US as Inspector Maigret in New York’s Underworld, Signet, paperback, 1956.
The title tells the whole story. All I have to do is fill in the details. Maigret is retired and living quietly at home when a young French lad calls on him and asks him to come with him to New York where he believes his father, a very rich businessman, is in trouble and perhaps afraid for his life.
Maigret agrees, but as soon as their ship docks, the boy disappears, and the father does not seem at all concerned. Not convinced, Maigret stays on the case, even though he is, not surprisingly, akin to a fish out of his natural habitat.
It is that part of the tale that is the more interesting; the problems of the Maura family, with its roots far in the past, less so. But after being quite overwhelmed at the beginning of his stay in the ultimate of American cities, Maigret soon rights himself, and as per his usual custom, sits in a bar alone thinking, and finally puts all the threads of the plot back together again — demonstrating that an expert in human behavior need not have all the comforts of home to get to the bottom of things.
It is the characters who make the story, in other words, as almost always is the case in a Maigret novel, but this time around that includes Maigret as well.
June 29th, 2018 at 10:32 pm
There is an autobiographical touch to this one since I am sure it reflects some of how Simenon himself felt when he moved to this country eventually living in Arizona, where ironically his neighbor was John Creasey.
The sound of typing must have been deafening.
June 29th, 2018 at 10:40 pm
Simenon wrote around 75 Maigret novels during a four decade period. The amazing thing is the over all high quality of the series. Practically all the novels are very short, many only a little over 100 pages long.
June 30th, 2018 at 7:11 pm
Walker,
I suspect the shortness of the Maigret’s is one secret of their quality. There isn’t room for the sort of tiresome padding so many writers in the genre fall prey to.