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Inspector Maigret #22
Cécile is Dead: Inspector Maigret #20
A new translation of this moving novel about the destructive power of greed, book twenty in the new Penguin Maigret series.
Poor Cécile! And yet she was still young. Maigret had seen her papers: barely twenty-eight years old. But it would be difficult to look more like an old maid, to move less gracefully, in spite of the care she took to be friendly and pleasant. Those black dresses that she must make for herself from bad paper patterns, that ridiculous green hat!
In the dreary suburbs of Paris, the merciless greed of a seemingly respectable woman is unearthed by her long suffering niece, and Maigret discovers the far-reaching consequences of their actions.
Penguin is publishing the entire series of Maigret novels in new translations. This novel has been published in a previous translation as Maigret and the Spinster.
'Compelling, remorseless, brilliant' John Gray
'One of the greatest writers of the twentieth century . . . Simenon was unequalled at making us look inside, though the ability was masked by his brilliance at absorbing us obsessively in his stories' Guardian
'A supreme writer . . . unforgettable vividness' Independent
Georges Simenon was born in Liège, Belgium, in 1903. Best known in Britain as the author of the Maigret books, his prolific output of over 400 novels and short stories have made him a household name in continental Europe. He died in 1989 in Lausanne, Switzerland, where he had lived for the latter part of his life.
176 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1942
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About the author
Georges Simenon
2,529books2,161followersGeorges Joseph Christian Simenon (1903 � 1989) was a Belgian writer. A prolific author who published nearly 500 novels and numerous short works, Simenon is best known as the creator of the fictional detective Jules Maigret.
Although he never resided in Belgium after 1922, he remained a Belgian citizen throughout his life.
Simenon was one of the most prolific writers of the twentieth century, capable of writing 60 to 80 pages per day. His oeuvre includes nearly 200 novels, over 150 novellas, several autobiographical works, numerous articles, and scores of pulp novels written under more than two dozen pseudonyms. Altogether, about 550 million copies of his works have been printed.
He is best known, however, for his 75 novels and 28 short stories featuring Commissaire Maigret. The first novel in the series, Pietr-le-Letton, appeared in 1931; the last one, Maigret et M. Charles, was published in 1972. The Maigret novels were translated into all major languages and several of them were turned into films and radio plays. Two television series (1960-63 and 1992-93) have been made in Great Britain.
During his "American" period, Simenon reached the height of his creative powers, and several novels of those years were inspired by the context in which they were written (Trois chambres à Manhattan (1946), Maigret à New York (1947), Maigret se fâche (1947)).
Simenon also wrote a large number of "psychological novels", such as La neige était sale (1948) or Le fils (1957), as well as several autobiographical works, in particular Je me souviens (1945), Pedigree (1948), Mémoires intimes (1981).
In 1966, Simenon was given the MWA's highest honor, the Grand Master Award.
In 2005 he was nominated for the title of De Grootste Belg (The Greatest Belgian). In the Flemish version he ended 77th place. In the Walloon version he ended 10th place.
Although he never resided in Belgium after 1922, he remained a Belgian citizen throughout his life.
Simenon was one of the most prolific writers of the twentieth century, capable of writing 60 to 80 pages per day. His oeuvre includes nearly 200 novels, over 150 novellas, several autobiographical works, numerous articles, and scores of pulp novels written under more than two dozen pseudonyms. Altogether, about 550 million copies of his works have been printed.
He is best known, however, for his 75 novels and 28 short stories featuring Commissaire Maigret. The first novel in the series, Pietr-le-Letton, appeared in 1931; the last one, Maigret et M. Charles, was published in 1972. The Maigret novels were translated into all major languages and several of them were turned into films and radio plays. Two television series (1960-63 and 1992-93) have been made in Great Britain.
During his "American" period, Simenon reached the height of his creative powers, and several novels of those years were inspired by the context in which they were written (Trois chambres à Manhattan (1946), Maigret à New York (1947), Maigret se fâche (1947)).
Simenon also wrote a large number of "psychological novels", such as La neige était sale (1948) or Le fils (1957), as well as several autobiographical works, in particular Je me souviens (1945), Pedigree (1948), Mémoires intimes (1981).
In 1966, Simenon was given the MWA's highest honor, the Grand Master Award.
In 2005 he was nominated for the title of De Grootste Belg (The Greatest Belgian). In the Flemish version he ended 77th place. In the Walloon version he ended 10th place.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 135 reviews
April 24, 2023
April 2023 Lunchtime Listen
Its strange, maybe when I read the book, I was suffering Maigret fatigue because I actually really enjoyed this as a "lunchtime listen". The only thing I would say is that it ended rather quickly , or was that because I was struggling with my sandwich and was concentrating on that. Who knows, but it sort of echos my original review below.
All of that said the "reading" by Gareth Armstrong was really superb.
2019/2020 Maigret solo series read
I will write more tomorrow, but suffice to say that this only just scraped into the 4 star category, I know, shock horror eh ?
Find out more tomorrow !!
And now tomorrow is here, so why do I think it only just scraped in at 4 stars, well .... Now maybe I was tired or just not paying attention because I was enjoying the book a lot, but I got to the end and I just didn't get it . I mean I'd read it all , I'd followed it all, and then in the last few pages, they mention something I hadn't remembered. I had to go back through the book and I still couldn't find it. I mean, I know it was mentioned, at least I'm sure it was, but I missed it.
So through my own fault of reading to quickly, reading too superficially or even reading with too much familiarity, I don't know, but I'm afraid I have penalised the book by giving it only 4 stars. It was really enjoyable, atmospheric, and so French but I lost it at the very last few pages.
Maybe a re-read in times to come will allow me to fully enjoy the story and not be like what ????
Its strange, maybe when I read the book, I was suffering Maigret fatigue because I actually really enjoyed this as a "lunchtime listen". The only thing I would say is that it ended rather quickly , or was that because I was struggling with my sandwich and was concentrating on that. Who knows, but it sort of echos my original review below.
All of that said the "reading" by Gareth Armstrong was really superb.
2019/2020 Maigret solo series read
I will write more tomorrow, but suffice to say that this only just scraped into the 4 star category, I know, shock horror eh ?
Find out more tomorrow !!
And now tomorrow is here, so why do I think it only just scraped in at 4 stars, well .... Now maybe I was tired or just not paying attention because I was enjoying the book a lot, but I got to the end and I just didn't get it . I mean I'd read it all , I'd followed it all, and then in the last few pages, they mention something I hadn't remembered. I had to go back through the book and I still couldn't find it. I mean, I know it was mentioned, at least I'm sure it was, but I missed it.
So through my own fault of reading to quickly, reading too superficially or even reading with too much familiarity, I don't know, but I'm afraid I have penalised the book by giving it only 4 stars. It was really enjoyable, atmospheric, and so French but I lost it at the very last few pages.
Maybe a re-read in times to come will allow me to fully enjoy the story and not be like what ????
November 22, 2023
Someone could say that if you've read one Maigret novel, you've read all and that person has quite a good point of view.
But I'd say that if you'd liked one you've liked all. This one in particular is almost average for Simenon's own standards, but has that final twist which changes almost all: two murders, two different authors...
But I'd say that if you'd liked one you've liked all. This one in particular is almost average for Simenon's own standards, but has that final twist which changes almost all: two murders, two different authors...
September 17, 2021
Romanul ne prezinta inca un caz spectaculos si incalcit din cariera comisarului francez Jules Maigret. De data aceasta totul porneste de la niste vizite surprinzatoare si naive din partea unei tinere, pe numele ei Cecile, la registratura Politiei. Ea pare sa se planga cu toata seriozitatea ca cineva patrunde in toiul noptii in casa pe care o imparte cu matusa ei si desi nimic nu dispare, obiectele isi schimba locul. Pare sa fie foarte sigura de acest aspect pentru ca mai multe nopti la rand a lasat niste indicii care sa-i confirme acest lucru. Nimeni de la politie insa, nici macar devotatul comisar Maigret, preocupat de un caz important, nu ii da atentie fetei. Abia cand matusa ei este gasita moarta prin strangulare si la putin timp si cadavrul fetei este descoperit, Maigret se decide sa porneasca pe urmele criminalului.
In mod inedit, cadavrul ei este gasit la Registratura Politiei, inghesuit intr-o debara, lucru care demonstreaza indrazneala si sangele rece al criminalului, alegand sa o ucida chiar sub nasul oamenilor legii.
Evident ca moartea matusii va aduce o sumedenie de rubedenii de prost gust, interesate de testamentul si banii ei, dar si o veche cunostinta a lui Maigret, certata cu legea. Printre ei, desigur, se afla criminalul.
Mi-a placut enigma destul de incalcita pe care Simenon o conduce cu maiestrie pana la final, care nu dezamageste cititorul. Am retinut si un citat despre aerul sofisticat si unic al Parisului: "Maigret simti, in trecere, un val de aer inmiresmat, care avea sa ramana pentru el esenta revarsatului de zi parizian: aroma cafelei cu frisca si a cornurilor calde, cu un foarte usor iz de rom."
Ca in fiecare roman, doamna Maigret are un farmec aparte si mie imi place mult de felul ei de-a fi: asteptandu-si acasa cuminte sotul, ingrijorandu-se pentru el si la venirea lui, incercand sa creeze o atmosfera plina de pace, confort, caldura si dragoste. Poate ca asta ii lipseste barbatului modern: o femeie in stare sa creeze un camin placut la care sa se intoarca.
Nu de mult am vazut serialul Maigret, cu Rowan Atkinson in rolul principal si in mod suprinzator pentru un comediant, acesta joaca foarte bine, rolul potrivindu-i-se ca o manusa. Acum nici nu-mi mai imaginez pe altcineva jucandu-l, fiind perfect in atitudine, seriozitate. Drept urmare va recomand seria alcatuita din cele 4 filme.
Inchei cu 3 citate pe care le-am retinut si care mi-au placut:
"Stia din experienta ca animalul din om se obisnuieste cu orice vizuina, din moment ce o poate umple cu mirosul, caldura si deprinderile sale."
"Dragostea s-a schimbat in avaritie. O pasiune ia locul alteia, se spune, si cui pe cui se scoate..."
"Am facut azi-dimineata deosebirea intre criminalul inainte si criminalul dupa. Ei bine, noi vrem sa cunoastem criminalul inainte... Cand il predam magistratilor, s-a terminat. A rupt-o definitiv, aproape in toate cazurile, cu viata lui de om. E un criminal, nimic mai mult, si magistratii il trateaza ca atare..."
In mod inedit, cadavrul ei este gasit la Registratura Politiei, inghesuit intr-o debara, lucru care demonstreaza indrazneala si sangele rece al criminalului, alegand sa o ucida chiar sub nasul oamenilor legii.
Evident ca moartea matusii va aduce o sumedenie de rubedenii de prost gust, interesate de testamentul si banii ei, dar si o veche cunostinta a lui Maigret, certata cu legea. Printre ei, desigur, se afla criminalul.
Mi-a placut enigma destul de incalcita pe care Simenon o conduce cu maiestrie pana la final, care nu dezamageste cititorul. Am retinut si un citat despre aerul sofisticat si unic al Parisului: "Maigret simti, in trecere, un val de aer inmiresmat, care avea sa ramana pentru el esenta revarsatului de zi parizian: aroma cafelei cu frisca si a cornurilor calde, cu un foarte usor iz de rom."
Ca in fiecare roman, doamna Maigret are un farmec aparte si mie imi place mult de felul ei de-a fi: asteptandu-si acasa cuminte sotul, ingrijorandu-se pentru el si la venirea lui, incercand sa creeze o atmosfera plina de pace, confort, caldura si dragoste. Poate ca asta ii lipseste barbatului modern: o femeie in stare sa creeze un camin placut la care sa se intoarca.
Nu de mult am vazut serialul Maigret, cu Rowan Atkinson in rolul principal si in mod suprinzator pentru un comediant, acesta joaca foarte bine, rolul potrivindu-i-se ca o manusa. Acum nici nu-mi mai imaginez pe altcineva jucandu-l, fiind perfect in atitudine, seriozitate. Drept urmare va recomand seria alcatuita din cele 4 filme.
Inchei cu 3 citate pe care le-am retinut si care mi-au placut:
"Stia din experienta ca animalul din om se obisnuieste cu orice vizuina, din moment ce o poate umple cu mirosul, caldura si deprinderile sale."
"Dragostea s-a schimbat in avaritie. O pasiune ia locul alteia, se spune, si cui pe cui se scoate..."
"Am facut azi-dimineata deosebirea intre criminalul inainte si criminalul dupa. Ei bine, noi vrem sa cunoastem criminalul inainte... Cand il predam magistratilor, s-a terminat. A rupt-o definitiv, aproape in toate cazurile, cu viata lui de om. E un criminal, nimic mai mult, si magistratii il trateaza ca atare..."
April 24, 2016
A nervous spinster, Cécile Pardon, has been telling Chief Inspector Maigret a ridiculous tale: that someone has been breaking into the apartment she shared with her invalid aunt and rearranging items and furniture. The entire Police Judiciare attribute Cécile’s reports to her having a crush on Maigret or too much time on her lonely hands. However, when Cécile awaits for Maigret with a message that “something terrible happened last night� and awaits him, she’s gone by the time Maigret tries to see her. She turns up strangled in a broom closet at the police station. And her Aunt Juliet Boynet turns up strangled in her apartment.
Why would someone kill this harmless spinster? Maigret soon figures out the why, but discovering who killed Cécile and her aunt, the cold, tight-fisted, avaricious owner of their apartment building, takes longer. Just as well, as I thoroughly enjoyed Georges Simenon’s 22th Maigret novel and welcomed every twist and turn � especially the very shocking reveal.
Why would someone kill this harmless spinster? Maigret soon figures out the why, but discovering who killed Cécile and her aunt, the cold, tight-fisted, avaricious owner of their apartment building, takes longer. Just as well, as I thoroughly enjoyed Georges Simenon’s 22th Maigret novel and welcomed every twist and turn � especially the very shocking reveal.
March 9, 2018
tenete conto che dei libri, perfino dei gialli, dimentico rapidamente la trama e addirittura lil finale, per trattenere solo le atmosfere, la descrizione di uno stato d'animo o di un luogo, qualche frase. Il resto finisce nel dimenticatoio.
In base a questo criterio (che non è neanche un criterio, è solo che mi viene da fare così), vi dico che questo, dei Maigret che ho letto e probabilmente anche degli altri, è il migliore.
In base a questo criterio (che non è neanche un criterio, è solo che mi viene da fare così), vi dico che questo, dei Maigret che ho letto e probabilmente anche degli altri, è il migliore.
July 1, 2024
I am now past the point of thinking of 's Maigret novels simply as genre literature. Any writer of mysteries who could enthrall the likes of William Faulkner, Muriel Spark, Peter Ackroyd, André Gide, P. D. James, and John Banville clearly has a lot more going for him than mere whodunits.
In , Simenon shows us an Inspector Maigret who is frantically trying to overcome a minor act of negligence which costs the life of a young woman, who is killed within feet of his office at the Police Judiciare. In addition, the elderly miser for whom she worked has been killed while wearing only one sock.
One new note is struck when Maigret is attended by a young American from Philadelphia who is studying his methods of crime detection. Does the Inspector regale him with clouds of theory? Not at all: He gets a lesson in practical detection as Maigret sifts through a crowd of suspects before hitting on the criminal(s). Throughout, he is like a force of nature:
In , Simenon shows us an Inspector Maigret who is frantically trying to overcome a minor act of negligence which costs the life of a young woman, who is killed within feet of his office at the Police Judiciare. In addition, the elderly miser for whom she worked has been killed while wearing only one sock.
One new note is struck when Maigret is attended by a young American from Philadelphia who is studying his methods of crime detection. Does the Inspector regale him with clouds of theory? Not at all: He gets a lesson in practical detection as Maigret sifts through a crowd of suspects before hitting on the criminal(s). Throughout, he is like a force of nature:
One day, when Madame Maigret was looking pensively at her husband, she had suddenly sighed, with almost comical candour, "I do wonder why you haven't been slapped in the face more often in your life."Simenon was so wrapped up in this story, which was written in 1939-1940, just on the verge of World War Two -- and yet there was not even a hint of the conflagration that was to overtake his world.
It was deeply heartfelt. In fact there were moments when, even with her, Maigret could be extraordinarily overbearing, and his wife was probably the only one who knew that he was entirely unaware of it. It wasn't that you saw an ironic smile or a glint of mockery in his eyes, nothing like that. You found yourself facing a solid block offering nothing you could get a grip on, a man who continued to be absorbed in his internal monologue while you were talking or getting worked up. Was the inspector listening to you/ Did he see you, or only the wall above your head? He would suddenly interrupt you in the middle of a sentence or a word, and what he said bore no relation to your preceding remarks.
August 21, 2020
Riprendo in mano un nuovo giallo con protagonista il commissario Maigret, anche se mi ero promesso di non leggerli troppo di frequente. Stavolta Maigret si occuperà di un delitto che lo colpisce al cuore visto che a perdere la vita non sarà soltanto la signora ricca alla quale sta indagando, trovata morta nel suo letto, ma anche Cécile, una ragazza che tutte le mattine si presentava al suo commissariato per poter parlare con lui, e gliela assassinano nel suo commissariato!
Anche stavolta Simenon rimarca il fatto che Maigret indaga su persone che, prima di diventare assassini, erano normali come noi: hanno una famiglia, un lavoro mediocre, una vita mediocre e non fanno quasi mai nulla di straordinario. Ci vuole dire, a bassa voce, che ognuno di noi potrebbe diventare un potenziale assassino. La nostra parte nascosta, oscura, può esplodere da un momento all'altro senza che ce ne rendiamo conto, e proprio questo deve cercare il detective: cosa ha spinto quel personaggio ha compiere quel delitto, e per fare ciò deve immedesimarsi in lui, provando le sue stesse emozioni. Ed infatti il Nostro ne uscirà affaticato e provato da questa indagine, tanto è vero che non riesce neanche una volta a pranzare e/o cenare con sua moglie che continua ad aspettarlo a tavola (anzi egli è così preso dalle indagini che dimentica pure di avvisarla che non potrà rientrare a casa!). Le atmosfere cupe e tristi come triste è questa vicenda sono rese benissimo, ma ho notato che dalla seconda parte in poi l'indagine sembra volgere in maniera un po' pasticciata (non aiuta il fatto che al commissario hanno mandato un poliziotto che lo osserva nel suo modo di indagare).
P.S. In questa indagine solo io noto che il commissario va a bere al bar praticamente ogni cinque minuti?
P.S. 2 Fa riflettere il fatto che Maigret se avesse accettato di parlare subito con la ragazza forse le avrebbe salvato la vita.
Anche stavolta Simenon rimarca il fatto che Maigret indaga su persone che, prima di diventare assassini, erano normali come noi: hanno una famiglia, un lavoro mediocre, una vita mediocre e non fanno quasi mai nulla di straordinario. Ci vuole dire, a bassa voce, che ognuno di noi potrebbe diventare un potenziale assassino. La nostra parte nascosta, oscura, può esplodere da un momento all'altro senza che ce ne rendiamo conto, e proprio questo deve cercare il detective: cosa ha spinto quel personaggio ha compiere quel delitto, e per fare ciò deve immedesimarsi in lui, provando le sue stesse emozioni. Ed infatti il Nostro ne uscirà affaticato e provato da questa indagine, tanto è vero che non riesce neanche una volta a pranzare e/o cenare con sua moglie che continua ad aspettarlo a tavola (anzi egli è così preso dalle indagini che dimentica pure di avvisarla che non potrà rientrare a casa!). Le atmosfere cupe e tristi come triste è questa vicenda sono rese benissimo, ma ho notato che dalla seconda parte in poi l'indagine sembra volgere in maniera un po' pasticciata (non aiuta il fatto che al commissario hanno mandato un poliziotto che lo osserva nel suo modo di indagare).
P.S. In questa indagine solo io noto che il commissario va a bere al bar praticamente ogni cinque minuti?
P.S. 2 Fa riflettere il fatto che Maigret se avesse accettato di parlare subito con la ragazza forse le avrebbe salvato la vita.
July 13, 2021
Maigret’s lapse�
Cécile Pardon has become a regular visitor to Inspector Maigret at his office in the Police Judiciaire building in Paris. A spinster who lived with her elderly widowed aunt, Cécile had become convinced that someone was coming in to their apartment at night while they slept. Maigret had made a superficial gesture towards investigating, but everyone thought she was imagining things. And worse, everyone was teasing Maigret that she kept visiting because she had a crush on him. So on this morning, when Maigret saw her sitting patiently in the waiting room he left her there and got on with other things. When eventually he went to collect her, she was gone. Later, the body of her aunt is found in the apartment, strangled, and Cécile is nowhere to be found. The title gives a clue as to her fate.
Realising the aunt must already have been dead when Cécile came to see him, Maigret suspects that she knew who the murderer was and wanted to tell him directly rather than report it to the local police. He feels that if he had only taken the time to speak to her, Cécile may not have been killed. Maigret is too sensible and too experienced to blame himself for her death � he’s quite clear in his own mind that the murderer is fully responsible for that � but nevertheless his slight lapse makes him even more determined than usual to see that justice is done.
This one has quite a complicated plot for a Maigret novel, with several suspects and possible motives. Mostly it’s set in the apartment block in Bourg-la-Reine that Cécile and her aunt lived in � a block that the aunt also owned. For it turns out that she’s a rich old woman, but miserly, always convinced that her relatives are scrounging from her. She’s also unpleasant, treating poor Cécile like an unpaid servant, being unwilling to assist her nephew even though he’s out of a job and his wife is about to have a baby, and so on. She plays her many relatives off against each other, hinting to each that they will be the one to inherit when she dies. But these aren’t the only suspects � rumour has it that she keeps large sums of money in the apartment since she doesn’t trust banks, so anyone may have decided to break in, kill her and steal the money. However, the apartment has a concierge who controls entry to the building, so that if this was what happened, it must have been one of the other tenants, or the concierge herself.
Later in the book, Maigret finds himself being accompanied on his investigations by a visiting American criminologist, Spencer Oates, who has been given the opportunity to study the great man’s method. But Maigret, as he has said in other books, doesn’t have what he thinks of as “a method� � he simply speaks to the people involved, learns as much as he can about the victim, studies the location and the timings, thinks himself into the mind of the murderer, and uses his intelligence and experience to work out what must have happened. So he uses Oates as a kind of sounding board as he develops his theory, thus allowing the reader to follow his thinking too.
There’s a sub-plot about a man, one of the tenants, who has previously been jailed for his inappropriate behaviour with young girls. Some aspects of this might jar with modern readers, as girls are shown both as vulnerable and predatory. Although it’s an unpopular viewpoint now, I find this much more realistic than the idea that girls remain innocent angels until the day they are legally adult, so I felt this was an accurate if unflattering portrayal of adolescent girls, and also that Simenon gave a contrast in Maigret and the ex-prisoner of the response of the good man and the bad � one resisting temptation, the other preying on vulnerability.
I listened to the audiobook narrated by Gareth Armstrong, and as always he did an excellent job of creating distinctive voices for Maigret and all the other characters.
Overall, I think this is one of the best of the Maigrets I’ve read so far. Simenon’s portrayal of the unglamorous side of Paris is as excellent as always, but this one is better plotted than some, and the themes and characterisation have more depth. And I always enjoy when the solution manages to surprise me but still feel credible. Quite a bleak story, but Maigret’s fundamental decency and integrity and his happy home life always stop these stories from becoming too depressingly noir. Highly recommended.
Cécile Pardon has become a regular visitor to Inspector Maigret at his office in the Police Judiciaire building in Paris. A spinster who lived with her elderly widowed aunt, Cécile had become convinced that someone was coming in to their apartment at night while they slept. Maigret had made a superficial gesture towards investigating, but everyone thought she was imagining things. And worse, everyone was teasing Maigret that she kept visiting because she had a crush on him. So on this morning, when Maigret saw her sitting patiently in the waiting room he left her there and got on with other things. When eventually he went to collect her, she was gone. Later, the body of her aunt is found in the apartment, strangled, and Cécile is nowhere to be found. The title gives a clue as to her fate.
Realising the aunt must already have been dead when Cécile came to see him, Maigret suspects that she knew who the murderer was and wanted to tell him directly rather than report it to the local police. He feels that if he had only taken the time to speak to her, Cécile may not have been killed. Maigret is too sensible and too experienced to blame himself for her death � he’s quite clear in his own mind that the murderer is fully responsible for that � but nevertheless his slight lapse makes him even more determined than usual to see that justice is done.
This one has quite a complicated plot for a Maigret novel, with several suspects and possible motives. Mostly it’s set in the apartment block in Bourg-la-Reine that Cécile and her aunt lived in � a block that the aunt also owned. For it turns out that she’s a rich old woman, but miserly, always convinced that her relatives are scrounging from her. She’s also unpleasant, treating poor Cécile like an unpaid servant, being unwilling to assist her nephew even though he’s out of a job and his wife is about to have a baby, and so on. She plays her many relatives off against each other, hinting to each that they will be the one to inherit when she dies. But these aren’t the only suspects � rumour has it that she keeps large sums of money in the apartment since she doesn’t trust banks, so anyone may have decided to break in, kill her and steal the money. However, the apartment has a concierge who controls entry to the building, so that if this was what happened, it must have been one of the other tenants, or the concierge herself.
Later in the book, Maigret finds himself being accompanied on his investigations by a visiting American criminologist, Spencer Oates, who has been given the opportunity to study the great man’s method. But Maigret, as he has said in other books, doesn’t have what he thinks of as “a method� � he simply speaks to the people involved, learns as much as he can about the victim, studies the location and the timings, thinks himself into the mind of the murderer, and uses his intelligence and experience to work out what must have happened. So he uses Oates as a kind of sounding board as he develops his theory, thus allowing the reader to follow his thinking too.
There’s a sub-plot about a man, one of the tenants, who has previously been jailed for his inappropriate behaviour with young girls. Some aspects of this might jar with modern readers, as girls are shown both as vulnerable and predatory. Although it’s an unpopular viewpoint now, I find this much more realistic than the idea that girls remain innocent angels until the day they are legally adult, so I felt this was an accurate if unflattering portrayal of adolescent girls, and also that Simenon gave a contrast in Maigret and the ex-prisoner of the response of the good man and the bad � one resisting temptation, the other preying on vulnerability.
I listened to the audiobook narrated by Gareth Armstrong, and as always he did an excellent job of creating distinctive voices for Maigret and all the other characters.
Overall, I think this is one of the best of the Maigrets I’ve read so far. Simenon’s portrayal of the unglamorous side of Paris is as excellent as always, but this one is better plotted than some, and the themes and characterisation have more depth. And I always enjoy when the solution manages to surprise me but still feel credible. Quite a bleak story, but Maigret’s fundamental decency and integrity and his happy home life always stop these stories from becoming too depressingly noir. Highly recommended.
February 4, 2018
Also known as Cécile is Dead, this Maigret from 1942 is one of the best, taking place in Paris, with an unexpected presence towards the end of an American detective, over in Paris to observe, and whom Simenon uses as someone for Maigret to expound and show his thoughts and methods. It works well, giving a broader perspective to our thoughts. As well as haunting the everyday cafés and restaurants that Maigret loves. A good'un
The GR blurb:
'A young woman who shares an apartment with an elderly aunt returns to police headquarters repeatedly to complain of strange shifts in the position of her furniture during the night. On a particularly busy day the Inspector puts her off just long enough for disaster to strike.'
The GR blurb:
'A young woman who shares an apartment with an elderly aunt returns to police headquarters repeatedly to complain of strange shifts in the position of her furniture during the night. On a particularly busy day the Inspector puts her off just long enough for disaster to strike.'
November 28, 2024
Cécile Is Dead, by Georges Simenon is Book 20 in the Inspector Maigret series. Someone said that each book is really the same. In some ways true, more accurately-they’re all different -yet the same. Maigret is a stalwart figure, steady in his approach to investigation, with consistent empathy to the victims, as well as, most often to his suspects, and not uncommonly to the killers. Each case, however, strikes me as quite different, as Simenon/Maigret investigates and deconstructs the peculiarities and characteristics of the event, and profiles the nature, habits and peculiarities of those he encounters. C’est le difference.
In the case of Cécile, Maigret seems quite different in mood and temper, while remaining consistent to his beliefs and methods towards determining the killer, some surprises ensue. Maigret as always adjusts to the evidence and information available. His mood and temper, upset, springs from his guilt that Cécile’s death was the result of his inaction, and came from his (and others) misunderstanding of the serious nature of her concerns. Rarely ruffled, Maigret is so here. Madame Maigret, even, takes caution not to disturb his concentration on unraveling the events.
To work. “it was the first time this season that the chill in the air had made the cafés close their doors. In passing, Maigret walked through a gust of aromatic air that was, to him, the quintessence of the Parisian dawn: the smell of good white coffee, hot croissants and just a touch of rum. He guessed that behind the steamed-up windows ten, fifteen or twenty customers were sitting at the metal counter, enjoying their first meal of the day before hurrying off to work.�
Police Judiciaire building. “As he reached the first floor he automatically glanced through the waiting-room windows and on recognizing Cécile, sitting on one of the chairs upholstered in green velour, he scowled. Of course she spotted the inspector and sprang to her feet. Maigret hurried to his office at the end of the corridor. The clerk came over to tell him � ‘I know, I know,� growled Maigret. ‘I don’t have time at the moment.’� � “Poor Cécile! And yet she was still young. Maigret had seen her papers: barely twenty-eight years old. But it would be difficult to look more like an old maid, to move less gracefully, no matter how hard she tried to be pleasing. And wait she did, all day, without moving, without any sign of impatience, suddenly leaping up, as if she were a prey to emotion, when the inspector came upstairs.� � � ‘It’s about that girl …� ‘Yes?� ‘Are you going to see her?� ‘In a little while.� First he wanted to finish dealing with the case that the boss had handed him. —It was eleven before he remembered Cécile, and he pressed the electric bell. ‘Ask the girl to come in.� ‘She’s left, inspector.� This wasn’t like Cécile, who had once spent seven hours in the waiting room without moving.�
A note. “You simply must see me. A terrible thing happened last night. CÉCILE PARDON.� - “Maigret felt a small and unpleasant sensation, a niggling anxiety, in his chest. He didn’t like it. They had made too much fun of poor Cécile.� � Maigret decides to act “Once at Pont Saint-Michel, he almost hailed a taxi, which could be a sign. Just because it could be a sign he didn’t do it and waited for a tram. He didn’t want to ascribe too much importance to Cécile, which would be tantamount to admitting that …� He thinks back to prior visits. � Maigret had summed up, ‘you are saying that for the third time in two months some unknown person entered the apartment where you and your aunt live, that this person spent time in the sitting room and changed the position of the chairs …� “The local police were asked to keep an eye on the building, which was under surveillance for almost a month. No one ever saw anyone but the tenants going in and out of it by night. And yet Cécile kept returning to Quai des Orfèvres.� � ‘Quick � there’s someone to see you!� ‘Who is it?� ‘Your love-sick admirer.� Lucas had spent eight nights running lying in wait in the stairwell of the building and had neither seen nor heard anything. ‘It could be tomorrow,� Cécile said. It was left at that. ‘Cécile is here …� Cécile was famous. Everyone called her Cécile.�
Maigret meets the aunt, 5th floor walk up apartment. “A strange corpse: a plump little old woman, heavily made up, her hair light blonde, over-bleached, � � wearing a red dressing gown and a stocking, just one stocking on the leg which was dangling over the edge of the bed.� —“In spite of himself, he looked around for Cécile. Not until five in the afternoon was he to learn that Cécile was dead.�
Cécile. “He couldn’t shake off the image of Cécile sitting in the Aquarium � as they called the waiting room at police headquarters, because one wall consisted entirely of glass. People came to sit in the Aquarium, and the clerk called them one after another. Only she was left � only Cécile was always kept waiting. What had made her decide to leave? Why had Cécile left Quai des Orfèvres suddenly? What could have made her decide to do so, when she had such serious news to give him?� —“A day that had started so well! That delicious waft of air scented with coffee, croissants and rum came back to his mind. The morning’s luminous misty air …�
Cécile in a hall closet —“Someone went into the waiting room and told her that I was ready to see her, but not in my office. Someone she believed was from the Police Judiciaire.� � ‘It had to be done fast, do you see? She was told that, all of a sudden, I could see her. She knew who had killed her aunt.� ‘She must have swayed, perhaps she fell, and the murderer finished her off without a sound by strangling her.�
Maigret meets the tenants. “In spite of the impression of gruffness that he gave, he viewed most human weaknesses with considerable indulgence, but there were certain people who made him bristle and feel physically uneasy in their vicinity. Monsieur Dandurand was one of them.� Former lawyer, convicted and disbarred for sexual child abuse. Teen age tenant. “Nouchi was the kind of girl to fall in love with anyone, from the police officer on the corner, to a neighbour who comes by at the same time every day, to a film star whom she has seen only on the screen, or a famous murderer. At the moment Maigret topped the ratings! ‘I can’t tell you my friend’s name, because he’s married.� Well, well, just like Berthe! Calm and composed Berthe with her cherry-red hat also had a lover who was a married man!� Berthe, Cécile’s sister.
Maigret. “In this state of physical lethargy, his mind seized upon connections that sometimes seemed absurd, following paths along which pure reason would not have led him. —He mustn’t go too fast. He mustn’t scare the truth away, for fear of losing sight of it again.� � � a soft, dismal rain with the resignation of widowhood. You didn’t see it falling; you didn’t feel it, yet it covered everything with a cold film, and the surface of the Seine was pitted with thousands of lively little circles.�
American visitor, a criminologist from Philadelphia to study Maigret’s methods. ‘Why does a man commit a crime, Monsieur Spencer? Out of jealousy, greed, hatred, envy, more rarely out of necessity � in short, when he is impelled by one of the human passions. We all have those passions in us to a greater or lesser degree. —my role is to find out who committed crimes. For that, all I have to think about is their mentality before they did it. To know whether such and such a man was capable of committing such and such a crime, and when and how he committed it.� ‘There are innocents who have the soul of a guilty man [Describing Cécile’s brother -Gerard] , and guilty men who have the soul of an innocent� ‘I was drawing a distinction between the criminal before and after he commits a crime. Well, what we want to know about is his life before he steps outside the law. When we hand him over to the lawyers, that’s the end of him. He’s broken with his life as an ordinary man, and almost always it’s a final break. He’s a criminal, that’s all, and the lawyers treat him as such.�
-The Aunt -the miser. “‘She lumped everyone together, everyone who approached her, everyone she suspected of having an eye on her money, Monsieur Dandurand included. Do you begin to understand it?� ‘Understand what?� -‘I sound almost as vague as she does � Understand what, indeed? I should have asked if you begin to feel it. You must be disappointed if, as you said this morning, you were hoping to study my methods. � How can I explain it to you? I feel it …� —Lunch. “Was it the effect of the coq au vin, the Beaujolais, a melting mocha gâteau made by Mélanie and Désiré’s Armagnac? In any case, Spencer Oats was looking affectionately at his heavyweight companion. He felt as if for some hours he had been watching a progressive transformation.� -“inhabiting the lives of all the characters in this case he was trying to illuminate: the unpleasant ones, the mean ones and the sympathetic ones� �
Gerard. “His wife could be having the baby at this very moment …� He was pink-cheeked as if he were the husband himself. Maigret was there in the train between two gendarmes, where Gérard should be. Two gendarmes were pushing a thin young man ahead of them. His trousers were muddy, his raincoat was torn, and he was lashing out as far as the handcuffs would allow.� —“so far as the public were concerned Gérard, feverish and belligerent, was the incarnation of the hunted criminal everyone was after!� —� ‘I don’t suppose anyone’s thought of my wife for a moment!� Large tears welled out from under his eyelids� —� he took a small key out of his pocket and removed Gérard Pardon’s handcuffs. ‘You’re going to do me the favour of keeping quiet, aren’t you? A few dozen more innocent men like you, and the Police Judiciaire would have to recruit three times its present force.� ‘Listen, young man � I know who killed your aunt.� —‘here’s the authorization for a payment on account, to be set against the twenty thousand for which you are about to qualify. Go on, get in there quickly!� Gérard, dazed and perhaps still suspicious, hesitated. ‘Oh, go on, you stupid idiot!�
Maigret still needs to find proof. The love letter’s hiding place. “‘A woman is always more cunning than her lover,� pronounced Maigret.�
Case closed.
In the case of Cécile, Maigret seems quite different in mood and temper, while remaining consistent to his beliefs and methods towards determining the killer, some surprises ensue. Maigret as always adjusts to the evidence and information available. His mood and temper, upset, springs from his guilt that Cécile’s death was the result of his inaction, and came from his (and others) misunderstanding of the serious nature of her concerns. Rarely ruffled, Maigret is so here. Madame Maigret, even, takes caution not to disturb his concentration on unraveling the events.
To work. “it was the first time this season that the chill in the air had made the cafés close their doors. In passing, Maigret walked through a gust of aromatic air that was, to him, the quintessence of the Parisian dawn: the smell of good white coffee, hot croissants and just a touch of rum. He guessed that behind the steamed-up windows ten, fifteen or twenty customers were sitting at the metal counter, enjoying their first meal of the day before hurrying off to work.�
Police Judiciaire building. “As he reached the first floor he automatically glanced through the waiting-room windows and on recognizing Cécile, sitting on one of the chairs upholstered in green velour, he scowled. Of course she spotted the inspector and sprang to her feet. Maigret hurried to his office at the end of the corridor. The clerk came over to tell him � ‘I know, I know,� growled Maigret. ‘I don’t have time at the moment.’� � “Poor Cécile! And yet she was still young. Maigret had seen her papers: barely twenty-eight years old. But it would be difficult to look more like an old maid, to move less gracefully, no matter how hard she tried to be pleasing. And wait she did, all day, without moving, without any sign of impatience, suddenly leaping up, as if she were a prey to emotion, when the inspector came upstairs.� � � ‘It’s about that girl …� ‘Yes?� ‘Are you going to see her?� ‘In a little while.� First he wanted to finish dealing with the case that the boss had handed him. —It was eleven before he remembered Cécile, and he pressed the electric bell. ‘Ask the girl to come in.� ‘She’s left, inspector.� This wasn’t like Cécile, who had once spent seven hours in the waiting room without moving.�
A note. “You simply must see me. A terrible thing happened last night. CÉCILE PARDON.� - “Maigret felt a small and unpleasant sensation, a niggling anxiety, in his chest. He didn’t like it. They had made too much fun of poor Cécile.� � Maigret decides to act “Once at Pont Saint-Michel, he almost hailed a taxi, which could be a sign. Just because it could be a sign he didn’t do it and waited for a tram. He didn’t want to ascribe too much importance to Cécile, which would be tantamount to admitting that …� He thinks back to prior visits. � Maigret had summed up, ‘you are saying that for the third time in two months some unknown person entered the apartment where you and your aunt live, that this person spent time in the sitting room and changed the position of the chairs …� “The local police were asked to keep an eye on the building, which was under surveillance for almost a month. No one ever saw anyone but the tenants going in and out of it by night. And yet Cécile kept returning to Quai des Orfèvres.� � ‘Quick � there’s someone to see you!� ‘Who is it?� ‘Your love-sick admirer.� Lucas had spent eight nights running lying in wait in the stairwell of the building and had neither seen nor heard anything. ‘It could be tomorrow,� Cécile said. It was left at that. ‘Cécile is here …� Cécile was famous. Everyone called her Cécile.�
Maigret meets the aunt, 5th floor walk up apartment. “A strange corpse: a plump little old woman, heavily made up, her hair light blonde, over-bleached, � � wearing a red dressing gown and a stocking, just one stocking on the leg which was dangling over the edge of the bed.� —“In spite of himself, he looked around for Cécile. Not until five in the afternoon was he to learn that Cécile was dead.�
Cécile. “He couldn’t shake off the image of Cécile sitting in the Aquarium � as they called the waiting room at police headquarters, because one wall consisted entirely of glass. People came to sit in the Aquarium, and the clerk called them one after another. Only she was left � only Cécile was always kept waiting. What had made her decide to leave? Why had Cécile left Quai des Orfèvres suddenly? What could have made her decide to do so, when she had such serious news to give him?� —“A day that had started so well! That delicious waft of air scented with coffee, croissants and rum came back to his mind. The morning’s luminous misty air …�
Cécile in a hall closet —“Someone went into the waiting room and told her that I was ready to see her, but not in my office. Someone she believed was from the Police Judiciaire.� � ‘It had to be done fast, do you see? She was told that, all of a sudden, I could see her. She knew who had killed her aunt.� ‘She must have swayed, perhaps she fell, and the murderer finished her off without a sound by strangling her.�
Maigret meets the tenants. “In spite of the impression of gruffness that he gave, he viewed most human weaknesses with considerable indulgence, but there were certain people who made him bristle and feel physically uneasy in their vicinity. Monsieur Dandurand was one of them.� Former lawyer, convicted and disbarred for sexual child abuse. Teen age tenant. “Nouchi was the kind of girl to fall in love with anyone, from the police officer on the corner, to a neighbour who comes by at the same time every day, to a film star whom she has seen only on the screen, or a famous murderer. At the moment Maigret topped the ratings! ‘I can’t tell you my friend’s name, because he’s married.� Well, well, just like Berthe! Calm and composed Berthe with her cherry-red hat also had a lover who was a married man!� Berthe, Cécile’s sister.
Maigret. “In this state of physical lethargy, his mind seized upon connections that sometimes seemed absurd, following paths along which pure reason would not have led him. —He mustn’t go too fast. He mustn’t scare the truth away, for fear of losing sight of it again.� � � a soft, dismal rain with the resignation of widowhood. You didn’t see it falling; you didn’t feel it, yet it covered everything with a cold film, and the surface of the Seine was pitted with thousands of lively little circles.�
American visitor, a criminologist from Philadelphia to study Maigret’s methods. ‘Why does a man commit a crime, Monsieur Spencer? Out of jealousy, greed, hatred, envy, more rarely out of necessity � in short, when he is impelled by one of the human passions. We all have those passions in us to a greater or lesser degree. —my role is to find out who committed crimes. For that, all I have to think about is their mentality before they did it. To know whether such and such a man was capable of committing such and such a crime, and when and how he committed it.� ‘There are innocents who have the soul of a guilty man [Describing Cécile’s brother -Gerard] , and guilty men who have the soul of an innocent� ‘I was drawing a distinction between the criminal before and after he commits a crime. Well, what we want to know about is his life before he steps outside the law. When we hand him over to the lawyers, that’s the end of him. He’s broken with his life as an ordinary man, and almost always it’s a final break. He’s a criminal, that’s all, and the lawyers treat him as such.�
-The Aunt -the miser. “‘She lumped everyone together, everyone who approached her, everyone she suspected of having an eye on her money, Monsieur Dandurand included. Do you begin to understand it?� ‘Understand what?� -‘I sound almost as vague as she does � Understand what, indeed? I should have asked if you begin to feel it. You must be disappointed if, as you said this morning, you were hoping to study my methods. � How can I explain it to you? I feel it …� —Lunch. “Was it the effect of the coq au vin, the Beaujolais, a melting mocha gâteau made by Mélanie and Désiré’s Armagnac? In any case, Spencer Oats was looking affectionately at his heavyweight companion. He felt as if for some hours he had been watching a progressive transformation.� -“inhabiting the lives of all the characters in this case he was trying to illuminate: the unpleasant ones, the mean ones and the sympathetic ones� �
Gerard. “His wife could be having the baby at this very moment …� He was pink-cheeked as if he were the husband himself. Maigret was there in the train between two gendarmes, where Gérard should be. Two gendarmes were pushing a thin young man ahead of them. His trousers were muddy, his raincoat was torn, and he was lashing out as far as the handcuffs would allow.� —“so far as the public were concerned Gérard, feverish and belligerent, was the incarnation of the hunted criminal everyone was after!� —� ‘I don’t suppose anyone’s thought of my wife for a moment!� Large tears welled out from under his eyelids� —� he took a small key out of his pocket and removed Gérard Pardon’s handcuffs. ‘You’re going to do me the favour of keeping quiet, aren’t you? A few dozen more innocent men like you, and the Police Judiciaire would have to recruit three times its present force.� ‘Listen, young man � I know who killed your aunt.� —‘here’s the authorization for a payment on account, to be set against the twenty thousand for which you are about to qualify. Go on, get in there quickly!� Gérard, dazed and perhaps still suspicious, hesitated. ‘Oh, go on, you stupid idiot!�
Maigret still needs to find proof. The love letter’s hiding place. “‘A woman is always more cunning than her lover,� pronounced Maigret.�
Case closed.
September 10, 2019
Nagyon élveztem! Kettős gyilkosság egy bérházban sok szereplővel, megfejthetetlen megoldással. :) A hangulathoz hozzájárul néhány korsó sör sonkás szendviccsel, pár beaujolais, calvados, és némi vörösboros kakaspörkölt kávés süteménnyel. Külön öröm a kis Spencer Oats jelenléte, aki a felügyelő módszereit kívánja tanulmányozni, ám a pohár teje megtagadtatik, és kénytelen kissé becsiccsenteni a kocsmatúrákon. ;) Azért az ügy végére is pont kerül, bár kellett hozzá némi szerencse is. :D
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March 8, 2025
Maigret is a very busy man, so when a dowdy young woman called Cécile tells him she is worried because someone has been moving the furniture round in her home, he fobs her off. Cécile is determined, however, and her constant presence at the police station causes jokes and mockery among his colleagues. Then one day he sees Cécile waiting but when he comes out some time later she has disappeared - only to be found later in a broom cupboard, murdered.
This was an excellent story, one of those sad, sordid affairs that Simenon excels at, with unpleasant characters (Cécile’s avaricious aunt and a lawyer whose taste for young girls has brought him a prison sentence) and the tension that is built up by silences and relentless pressure. I would say that the plot did have some similarities with the previous one in the series, but Simenon always manages to put a different slant on his stories to keep them fresh and original. I also enjoyed the presence of the American criminologist who comes to learn Maigret’s techniques and gets taken on a tour of bars and bistros!
This was an excellent story, one of those sad, sordid affairs that Simenon excels at, with unpleasant characters (Cécile’s avaricious aunt and a lawyer whose taste for young girls has brought him a prison sentence) and the tension that is built up by silences and relentless pressure. I would say that the plot did have some similarities with the previous one in the series, but Simenon always manages to put a different slant on his stories to keep them fresh and original. I also enjoyed the presence of the American criminologist who comes to learn Maigret’s techniques and gets taken on a tour of bars and bistros!
January 5, 2016
Here we have a story that is more than meets the eye. Paris is enmeshed in a soupy fog that gives the morning the appearance of a Gothic evening. Maigret makes his way from his home to police headquarters where a young lady with a modest and mousy demeanor, Mlle. Cécile Pardon, has been dutifully awaiting his arrival. Lately, she had been a frequent visitor to police headquarters, vainly trying to get Maigret's attention about some "irregularities" she had noticed at the apartment of her old and miserly aunt with whom she lives and has dutifully catered to her needs for years.
When finally Maigret deigns to meet with Mlle. Pardon, she is gone."His first reaction was to shrug it off. Then, as he sat down again, he frowned. This was not like Cécile, who had once waited seven hours for him, sitting motionless in the waiting room. There were papers all over his desk. He searched through them for the slip she had filled in. At last, under youong Duchemin's file, he found it.
'I must see you most urgently. Something terrible happened last night.' - Cécile Pardon"
Maigret, now in reflection mode, thinks back several months ago to a meeting he had at police headquarters with Mlle. Pardon in which she told him of her suspicions that someone had been rummaging through her aunt's personal effects during the evening. Someone who has managed somehow to get access to her aunt's apartment at a time in which she and her aunt --- who is a virtual invalid --- are fast asleep. Cécile explained to Maigret that "... not only did I find that two chairs had been moved, but also that the thread had been broken. ... So, obviously someone must have been in the apartment. Whoever it was spent some time in the sitting room and, what's more, opened my aunt's desk. I'd rigged up something there, too. It's the third time in two months. My aunt has been almost wholly incapacitated for some months. No-one has a key to the apartment, and yet the lock hasn't been forced. I haven't liked to mention to Aunt Juliette, it would only worry her. All the same, I'm certain of one thing, nothing has been taken. If it had been, she would have mentioned it; she's so suspicious of everyone."
His curiosity fully aroused, Maigret makes his way to the house in the Bourg-la-Reine neighborhood where Cécile Pardon had lived with her aunt for many years. There Cécile's aunt is found in her apartment, dead. Cause of death: strangulation. A search is then carried out for Cécile, who had been so anxious to speak with Maigret that morning. Eventually she is found in a somewhat obscure corner of police headquarters - dead. Cause of death: murder.
The rest of the novel is centered upon Maigret's efforts to solve both murders, a process which takes him down a winding path involving many of the characters in the house in the Bourg-la-Reine. Never a dull moment here. Any reader need only afford him/herself some leisure and become immersed in this lively, engaging story.
When finally Maigret deigns to meet with Mlle. Pardon, she is gone."His first reaction was to shrug it off. Then, as he sat down again, he frowned. This was not like Cécile, who had once waited seven hours for him, sitting motionless in the waiting room. There were papers all over his desk. He searched through them for the slip she had filled in. At last, under youong Duchemin's file, he found it.
'I must see you most urgently. Something terrible happened last night.' - Cécile Pardon"
Maigret, now in reflection mode, thinks back several months ago to a meeting he had at police headquarters with Mlle. Pardon in which she told him of her suspicions that someone had been rummaging through her aunt's personal effects during the evening. Someone who has managed somehow to get access to her aunt's apartment at a time in which she and her aunt --- who is a virtual invalid --- are fast asleep. Cécile explained to Maigret that "... not only did I find that two chairs had been moved, but also that the thread had been broken. ... So, obviously someone must have been in the apartment. Whoever it was spent some time in the sitting room and, what's more, opened my aunt's desk. I'd rigged up something there, too. It's the third time in two months. My aunt has been almost wholly incapacitated for some months. No-one has a key to the apartment, and yet the lock hasn't been forced. I haven't liked to mention to Aunt Juliette, it would only worry her. All the same, I'm certain of one thing, nothing has been taken. If it had been, she would have mentioned it; she's so suspicious of everyone."
His curiosity fully aroused, Maigret makes his way to the house in the Bourg-la-Reine neighborhood where Cécile Pardon had lived with her aunt for many years. There Cécile's aunt is found in her apartment, dead. Cause of death: strangulation. A search is then carried out for Cécile, who had been so anxious to speak with Maigret that morning. Eventually she is found in a somewhat obscure corner of police headquarters - dead. Cause of death: murder.
The rest of the novel is centered upon Maigret's efforts to solve both murders, a process which takes him down a winding path involving many of the characters in the house in the Bourg-la-Reine. Never a dull moment here. Any reader need only afford him/herself some leisure and become immersed in this lively, engaging story.
July 19, 2023
Maigrets are always a good read, even though some are better than others, and there is often a sameness about them. This one, however, surprised me. It occurred to me while reading that this was written in 1942, so, during the German occupation of France.
September 7, 2016
Written the same clinically depressed voice that Simenon writes all of his murder mysteries. But gives you a good feel for Parisian life and culture in the sixties.
September 3, 2017
Simenon is in competition with the second tier of great authors or of the third, but Maigret is growing more human with every story, in ways that cannot happen in one book.
March 17, 2021
A very solid Maigret, bolstered a bit by the unusually personal nature of the crime.
August 15, 2023
I'm a reluctant reader of Maigret. He's a moody man who spends most of his time locked inside his own head. He treats the people around him as either instruments of his will or specimens to be vivisected. His 'method' seems to be to brood deeply, eat and drink a lot, issue gnomic exclamations, bark orders, brood some more and then bring the bad guy to justice.
So why do I keep spending time in Maigret's company? Because of Georges Simenon's gift for making unpleasant stories about unpleasant people come to life with simple, concise prose. He has a gestalt style that displays fragments of a pattern vividly but disjointedly, enticing my imagination to fill in the blanks and see a shape that is much richer than the individual slices I've been shown. His prose is dispassionate and often brusquely factual and yet he generates empathy as well as insight.
'Cécile Is Dead' is a great example of how he works. The plot, such as it is, is about greed, paranoia, desperation and betrayal but the book is mainly about Maigret's guilt.
There are no long speeches about any of these things, rather they're displayed in fractured fragments as Maigret figures who killed a miserly old woman in her own apartment in the dead of night.
Yet the old lady's death isn't what pushes Maigret into a state of obsessive brooding. He wants to know why Cécile, the old lady's niece, is dead. He is fixated on Cécile's death not for what for him would be a normal reason, i.e. that her death is an aberration in the emerging pattern of the crime but because he feels responsible for her death. His whole investigation is a form of penance to expiate the guilt he feels for not having taken the simple actions that would have avoided her death.
I admire how Simenon pulled me into this mire of misery from the first page. Two chapters in and I was already immersed in the seedy, smoke-filled, men-without-women, hierarchical chaos that is Maigret's police station and my dislike for them was amplified by how they treated Cécile.
When Cécile was found dead and I realised that, this time, Maigret would be driven by well-deserved guilt about the consequences of his detachment, I couldn't suppress a brief surge of schadenfreude, which is a tribute to how well Simenon has drawn Maigret.
I don't like Maigret. It's not that he's annoying like Poirot, it's just that he's so detached from everything except the puzzle he's solving.
I wasn't engaged by the puzzle Maigret was trying to solve, mainly because it was clear that, like his colleagues, I'd have to wait for the big reveal at the end of Maigret's brooding and there was no point in trying to second-guess the outcome.
What kept my attention were the vivid descriptions of the seedy, desperate, poverty-stricken Paris that Maigret wades through. It seemed to me that Mr Charles' apartment was a metaphor for it all - a decaying, neglected place saturated in an unpleasant smell that is cloying to spend time in and clings to your clothes long after you've left.
So why do I keep spending time in Maigret's company? Because of Georges Simenon's gift for making unpleasant stories about unpleasant people come to life with simple, concise prose. He has a gestalt style that displays fragments of a pattern vividly but disjointedly, enticing my imagination to fill in the blanks and see a shape that is much richer than the individual slices I've been shown. His prose is dispassionate and often brusquely factual and yet he generates empathy as well as insight.
'Cécile Is Dead' is a great example of how he works. The plot, such as it is, is about greed, paranoia, desperation and betrayal but the book is mainly about Maigret's guilt.
There are no long speeches about any of these things, rather they're displayed in fractured fragments as Maigret figures who killed a miserly old woman in her own apartment in the dead of night.
Yet the old lady's death isn't what pushes Maigret into a state of obsessive brooding. He wants to know why Cécile, the old lady's niece, is dead. He is fixated on Cécile's death not for what for him would be a normal reason, i.e. that her death is an aberration in the emerging pattern of the crime but because he feels responsible for her death. His whole investigation is a form of penance to expiate the guilt he feels for not having taken the simple actions that would have avoided her death.
I admire how Simenon pulled me into this mire of misery from the first page. Two chapters in and I was already immersed in the seedy, smoke-filled, men-without-women, hierarchical chaos that is Maigret's police station and my dislike for them was amplified by how they treated Cécile.
When Cécile was found dead and I realised that, this time, Maigret would be driven by well-deserved guilt about the consequences of his detachment, I couldn't suppress a brief surge of schadenfreude, which is a tribute to how well Simenon has drawn Maigret.
I don't like Maigret. It's not that he's annoying like Poirot, it's just that he's so detached from everything except the puzzle he's solving.
I wasn't engaged by the puzzle Maigret was trying to solve, mainly because it was clear that, like his colleagues, I'd have to wait for the big reveal at the end of Maigret's brooding and there was no point in trying to second-guess the outcome.
What kept my attention were the vivid descriptions of the seedy, desperate, poverty-stricken Paris that Maigret wades through. It seemed to me that Mr Charles' apartment was a metaphor for it all - a decaying, neglected place saturated in an unpleasant smell that is cloying to spend time in and clings to your clothes long after you've left.
January 7, 2022
An engaging crime fiction novel about detective Maigret investigating the murder of 28 year old dowdy Cecile and her 59 year old miserly rich aunt.
Cecile, always dressed in black with a ridiculous green hat, with a too pale face, looking like an old maid, for six months has been coming to the police station, convinced someone is breaking into her aunt’s apartment. The more Maigret learns about the aunt, the closer he comes to solving her murder.
This book was first published in 1942. The 22nd novel in the Maigret series.
Cecile, always dressed in black with a ridiculous green hat, with a too pale face, looking like an old maid, for six months has been coming to the police station, convinced someone is breaking into her aunt’s apartment. The more Maigret learns about the aunt, the closer he comes to solving her murder.
This book was first published in 1942. The 22nd novel in the Maigret series.
January 30, 2015
One of my favourite Maigrets so far. I enjoyed the Bruno Cremer film very much, and this time it's the book that adds background and depth to the film characters. There's a minor plot hole or two, but Simenon's writing evokes Paris of the time--with no mention of the war, of course! Interesting that he had dropped Maigret for nearly a decade until this one; perhaps he felt the need to escape from the harsh realities of war--and knew his reading public did, too. Perhaps the appeal of writing "les romans durs" faded when real life became "dur".
A quick, satisfying read; Maigret is at his stolid best, and his need to "toast" himself in a "warm and cosy" office or even the cinema may reflect the desire to escape the cold real world and find time to think and reflect. "Les enfants" (Janvier, Torrance and co) participate in this installment more than the last one I read; it's good to see them again. I'd had a perfectly rotten day when I picked this up, and it smoothed me into relaxation before midnight. Like many French police procedural films, Simenon feels no need to focus on the blood and gore details: suggest it, let the intelligent public get it, then move on.
I don't quite understand the need to include the redheaded American character, Spencer Oates, who does nothing in the narrative beyond trailing behind Maigret and drinking milk (!) in bistros. Was the cleancut American boy who only ever drinks milk already a trope in those days? Must have been, for a French author to know about it! In other novels Maigret nearly prides himself on knowing only a few English words, so it's a good thing "Monsieur Spencer" can speak French.
My one quibble with the mystery itself is about acoustics. I myself live in one of the "new buildings" (ie jerrybuilt with no insulation) where you can hear your upstairs neighbours flick on the light switch or open the cupboard door, but while we are sometimes unwilling auditors of their conversations (particularly here, where most women speak in a shout), whispers don't carry through brick. If one of the plot points is that while they could hear drawers being opened, they couldn't tell where the drawer was situated, the business of overhearing a whispered conversation upstairs falls very flat.
A quick, satisfying read; Maigret is at his stolid best, and his need to "toast" himself in a "warm and cosy" office or even the cinema may reflect the desire to escape the cold real world and find time to think and reflect. "Les enfants" (Janvier, Torrance and co) participate in this installment more than the last one I read; it's good to see them again. I'd had a perfectly rotten day when I picked this up, and it smoothed me into relaxation before midnight. Like many French police procedural films, Simenon feels no need to focus on the blood and gore details: suggest it, let the intelligent public get it, then move on.
I don't quite understand the need to include the redheaded American character, Spencer Oates, who does nothing in the narrative beyond trailing behind Maigret and drinking milk (!) in bistros. Was the cleancut American boy who only ever drinks milk already a trope in those days? Must have been, for a French author to know about it! In other novels Maigret nearly prides himself on knowing only a few English words, so it's a good thing "Monsieur Spencer" can speak French.
My one quibble with the mystery itself is about acoustics. I myself live in one of the "new buildings" (ie jerrybuilt with no insulation) where you can hear your upstairs neighbours flick on the light switch or open the cupboard door, but while we are sometimes unwilling auditors of their conversations (particularly here, where most women speak in a shout), whispers don't carry through brick. If one of the plot points is that while they could hear drawers being opened, they couldn't tell where the drawer was situated, the business of overhearing a whispered conversation upstairs falls very flat.
October 25, 2020
Another brilliant example of Simenon's in depth knowledge of human nature. An unusual plot with a unexpected twist at the end. As usual, Maigret grunts and shrugs his way through getting the feel of all the protagonists one of whom is in dire poverty. The description of how this feels and affects every moment of his existence is absolutely superb. Wonderful writing, even in translation.
January 6, 2019
After a young woman and her invalid aunt are murdered, Inspector Maigret regrets dismissing her fearful claims that someone has been entering their locked apartment at night.
In this novel, Maigret is driven to solve the case by personal remorse. Prior to the murders, Cecile had visited him on several occasions, claiming that someone had been getting into their apartment at night as evidenced by items found out of place. While Maigret did eventually post officers both outside the building and in the stairwell, the general consensus at police headquarters was that the lonely poor spinster was either fabricating this story for attention or experiencing paranoid delusions, and Maigret would put off seeing her for as long as possible whenever she appeared in the police waiting room. After Cecile and her aunt are killed, he regrets dismissing her as a quack.
Cecile is a pitiful character with whom I couldn't help sympathizing. She is the servant and caretaker of her ungrateful aunt who exploits her meek nature and lives a miserable existence from the deaths of her parents until her senseless death. Even after her murder, the poor girl continues to be treated as a laughing stock.
This case was more straightforward than many of Maigret's cases. There were no baffling leaps of logic. An American criminologist even turns up near the end to observe Inspector Maigret's methods, which gives Maigret the opportunity to elaborate on his personal strategy of understanding the person behind the crime. "It is impossible to conduct a police inquiry without, to some extent, entering into the life of the accused ... We visit him in his home ... We become familiar with his house, his habits, his family, and his friends ... all our efforts are directed toward getting to know the murderer as he was before ..." (Page 129).
In this novel, Maigret is driven to solve the case by personal remorse. Prior to the murders, Cecile had visited him on several occasions, claiming that someone had been getting into their apartment at night as evidenced by items found out of place. While Maigret did eventually post officers both outside the building and in the stairwell, the general consensus at police headquarters was that the lonely poor spinster was either fabricating this story for attention or experiencing paranoid delusions, and Maigret would put off seeing her for as long as possible whenever she appeared in the police waiting room. After Cecile and her aunt are killed, he regrets dismissing her as a quack.
Cecile is a pitiful character with whom I couldn't help sympathizing. She is the servant and caretaker of her ungrateful aunt who exploits her meek nature and lives a miserable existence from the deaths of her parents until her senseless death. Even after her murder, the poor girl continues to be treated as a laughing stock.
This case was more straightforward than many of Maigret's cases. There were no baffling leaps of logic. An American criminologist even turns up near the end to observe Inspector Maigret's methods, which gives Maigret the opportunity to elaborate on his personal strategy of understanding the person behind the crime. "It is impossible to conduct a police inquiry without, to some extent, entering into the life of the accused ... We visit him in his home ... We become familiar with his house, his habits, his family, and his friends ... all our efforts are directed toward getting to know the murderer as he was before ..." (Page 129).
August 1, 2018
An even more claustrophobic Maigret than usual and filled with very unpleasant or strange people. The death of an old miser, who secretly has fronted the mob’s investment in brothels, followed soon thereafter by her neice, a peculiar woman who has been pestering Maigret that something strange is going on in the apartment. There’s also a disbarred lawyer who is a pedarest who was the old woman’s lover. The two murders are linked but not connected and Maigret solves them with his usual application of analytical psychology. Another peculiarity is the appearance of an American criminologist who shadows Maigret and serves as an audience for the inspector’s thinking. An odd book all the way around; disjointed and slightly hysterical.
March 5, 2021
Kdysi před lety jsem tento příběh již jednou četla, ale stihla jsem od té doby kompletně zapomenout, o čem to bylo. Tak jsem si to připomněla - vyposlechla jsem si to v dramatizaci Českého rozhlasu, kde hlavní postavu komisaře Maigreta namluvil skvělý Josef Somr. A musím říct, že mne to dost bavilo a vlastně přemýšlím, proč mne ten Maigret pořád tak míjí.
Zápletka docela fajn - i když by někomu mohla přijít trochu jednodušší v porovnání s tím, co za zvraty a dějové kombinace se píše a používá v současných detektivkách. Nicméně zpracováním za mne skvělé a Maigret je charismatická postava. Dramatizace jako taková za mne hodně povedená a Josef Somr jakožto Maigret prostě výborný. Celkově 4 hvězdy a zaslouženě.
Rozhodně brzy sáhnu po nějakém dalším titulu z pera tohoto autora.
Zápletka docela fajn - i když by někomu mohla přijít trochu jednodušší v porovnání s tím, co za zvraty a dějové kombinace se píše a používá v současných detektivkách. Nicméně zpracováním za mne skvělé a Maigret je charismatická postava. Dramatizace jako taková za mne hodně povedená a Josef Somr jakožto Maigret prostě výborný. Celkově 4 hvězdy a zaslouženě.
Rozhodně brzy sáhnu po nějakém dalším titulu z pera tohoto autora.
November 25, 2023
Maigret never fails to deliver! 75 books in a series as venerable as this, and I’ve yet to read one that didn’t satisfy. Georges Simenon is rightly regarded as one of the giants of detective fiction, each book a little pearl of reading pleasure.
I think it may partly be that it’s because Maigret mostly solves the crimes purely by thinking about the case and the people involved; whereas Hercule Poirot used “ze little grey cells� to come to an intellectual solution, Maigret’s mind leads him to an emotional perception of the truth. Both great detectives, quite different approaches, but both hit the target perfectly.
Here, Maigret has been getting pestered by an old maid who’s been complaining that somebody has been sneaking into the apartment of her aunt, with whom she lives and whom she cares for. By the time Maigret realizes she isn’t a nutter, both Cécile and her aunt are dead. His guilt at failing to appertain the seriousness of the case earlier drives him to solve this thorny case. Great stuff!
I think it may partly be that it’s because Maigret mostly solves the crimes purely by thinking about the case and the people involved; whereas Hercule Poirot used “ze little grey cells� to come to an intellectual solution, Maigret’s mind leads him to an emotional perception of the truth. Both great detectives, quite different approaches, but both hit the target perfectly.
Here, Maigret has been getting pestered by an old maid who’s been complaining that somebody has been sneaking into the apartment of her aunt, with whom she lives and whom she cares for. By the time Maigret realizes she isn’t a nutter, both Cécile and her aunt are dead. His guilt at failing to appertain the seriousness of the case earlier drives him to solve this thorny case. Great stuff!
August 26, 2017
I can't imagine why I used to like Maigret. Here is a man who can't have a decent conversation with his wife of many years because his mind is always on his work. He is a self-confessed prude and an unacknowledged misogynist. He happens to be good at one thing: putting himself into the minds of the people he's investigating and figuring out how they would act based on their characters. That makes for an interesting mystery, in which he solves two interrelated murders . It's not worth it to me to revisit the scenes of his crimes any longer, however. Malheureusement.
February 15, 2023
Traduzione italiana ottima. Simenon formidabile nella narrazione di una delle inchieste più belle del commissario Maigret, in una Parigi magica.
June 12, 2023
Excellent mystery. Maigret feels responsible and has to unravel a situation that isn't obvious.
August 18, 2023
[Hamish Hamilton] (1977). HB/DJ. 1/1. 155 Pages. Obtained from Melvyn Barnes.
A convoluted dual murder yarn. Typically well executed.
A convoluted dual murder yarn. Typically well executed.
May 26, 2024
It's hard to review Maigret books. You either like them, or don't. I've read twenty five now (out of seventy five), so I'm only 1/3 of the way through them all. They all follow the same basic template -- 145-175 pages, 10-12 chapters. A murder (or murders) occurs. The patient, diligent Maigret works his way thru the crime: clues, facts, suspects, etc. Results. This one works well. I enjoyed it.
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