Translated by Siân Reynolds
My second read for the #1952Club reading week hosted by Kaggsy and Simon – is a Maigret – there’s nearly always a Maigret that can be fitted in! Karen has also reviewed it here reading an older translation, Reynold’s one for the most recent Penguin reissues dates from 2017.
An unusually agitated Madame Maigret interupts her husband’s day at work, saying they’d had a young man visit their home hoping to catch the Chief Inspector home for lunch, but Maigret was delayed and he left. There’s a problem though, Maigret had been showing a presentation revolver to a friend the night before and neglected to lock it away afterwards – the gun is gone with the young man!
Maigret! How could you? This incident spoiled an otherwise top-notch novel for me. I’m sorry – with my long history of working in Health & Safety, I found it hard to let him get away with this act of negligence. Of course the gun will turn up again eventually and Maigret will claim it back, but still…
It wasn’t loaded, and Maigret is not really concerned (enough) about it. He and Madame Maigret go off to a dinner party at Dr Pardon’s house, where the Doctor expounds about one of his patients who is due to come too and wanted to meet Maigret. But Lagrange’s son has gone missing, which sounds coincidentally linked to the missing gun perhaps? Maigret and his team get on the case, which takes them to London. He boards the plane…
His neighbour leaned over amicably to point out the white cliffs, explaining:
‘That’s Dover . . . Douvres.’
He thanked the man with a smile, and soon there was only a thin haze between the aeroplane and the earth beneath. Occasionally, they came to a larger luminous cloud and emerged from it to see green fields down below, dotted with miniature cows.
Finally, the horizon tilted and Croydon airport came into view. And so, once they had landed, did Mr Pyke.
Mr Pyke welcomes his French colleague, and gives him news of Alain Lagrange, who has appeared in the city, working his way through hotels, asking for Madame Jeanne Debul – a woman Maigret has already met in Paris during his initial investigations. Why is she in London too? In London, Maigret is acting without jurisdiction, but with the assistance of the British police. He will uncover the true story behind Alain’s plight and flight, and show his innate empathy for the young man, and irritation with the rest involved! Needless to say, at the novel’s end, Madame Maigret is pleased to get him back in one piece.
Apart from the gun business, I really enjoyed this Maigret. It has twists and turns, and lots of nasty business. I really warmed to the English policeman Mr Pyke, who is subtle and efficient.
BTW, I picked the quote of the approach to Croydon Airport as the house where I lived in the 1970s backed onto the Purley Way and the grounds of the former airport, of which my brother is now a trustee of the Airport Visitor Centre.
Source: Own copy. Penguin paperback, 2017, 183 pages. BUY at Blackwell’s via my affiliate link.
