Crime Fiction Alphabet: S is for …
… Maigret and the Ghost by Georges Simenon, which is my choice to illustrate the letter S in Kerrie’s Crime Fiction Alphabet.
Simenon wrote many Maigret books spanning the years 1931 – 1972, 75 novels and twenty eight short stories to be precise.
Maigret and the Ghost was first published in 1964 as Maigret et le Fantome. Inspector Lognon, a plain-clothes detective is shot in the street and is close to death, fighting for his life. The last word he spoke was ‘ghost’. It is soon apparent that this grumpy detective, who suffers from an inferiority complex, believing that he never gets the credit he is due, was visiting the apartment of a beautiful young woman every night. Chief Superintendent Maigret finds it hard to believe he has transformed into some sort of Don Juan. The young woman has disappeared.
Maigret investigates in his usual seemingly casual manner, registering impressions, which he knew would sooner or later ‘coalesce and become meaningful.’ Lognon’s wife insists that he was convinced he was onto something big which would bring him the recognition he deserved. Maigret’s investigations lead him into the strange world of art dealer Norris Jonker and his glamorous and much younger wife, Mirella. His search for the culprit brings him into contact again with the English detective he had first met in My Friend Maigret, Mr Pyke, now Chief Inspector Pyke at Scotland Yard.
I really enjoyed this short, concise detective story. Simenon writes such taut prose, straight-forward and direct, with not one word wasted. He conveys the nature of each character with precision, the dialogue is so realistic and the setting in a rainy Paris is so atmospheric. It’s almost like viewing a painting. Because his books are short (in comparison to today’s chunksters) the tension is easily maintained throughout and it’s so well-paced that I just had to read it straight through from start to finish.
Although short Simenon’s books don’t lack detail or complicated plots. One of the things I like about them are the glimpses into Maigret’s personal life. In this book Madame Maigret is thrilled because he invites her out to lunch:
They couldn’t help exchanging smiles. The contrast between lunching at home in the Boulevard Richard-Lenoir and in the intimate atmosphere of the little restaurant struck them both at the same time. Madame Maigret especially was tremendously thrilled by it. (page 37)
She was also thrilled because she had been to see Madame Lognon and on telling Maigret about the visit he commented:
‘I fancy what you have just told me alters the whole complexion of the case …’
She stared at him, torn between incredulity and delight. For the rest of her life, that lunch at Chez Maniere was to remain one of her happiest memories. (page 40)
Georges Simenon was definitely a master of the detective novel.
- Paperback: 160 pages
- Publisher: Penguin Classics; New Ed edition (4 Dec 2003)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0141187271
- ISBN-13: 978-0141187273
- Source: library book
- My Rating 4/5
I’ve read some of his other books –
Classics Challenge – September Prompt: Music
This year I am taking part in a Classics Challenge hosted by Katherine of November’s Autumn. The goal is to read at least seven classics in 2012 and every month Katherine is posting a prompt to help us discuss the books we are reading.
This month’s prompt is to select a piece of…
Music
…that you feel reflects the book. Modern, classical, jazz, anything, it doesn’t have to be from the period of the novel but share what it is about the piece that echoes the novel in someway.
I don’t listen to music when I’m reading because I just don’t hear it when I’m lost in the words and the story. But some books automatically bring music into my head as the book I’m reading this month does. It’s the classic science fiction – The War of the Worlds by H G Wells and the music is Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of The War of the Worlds, an album that we bought in 1978 – wonderful music and words bringing the book to life. It’s narrated by Richard Burton with songs by David Essex, Julie Covington and Justin Hayward.
The opening words and music are always thrilling, heralding the coming of the Martians to Earth:
No one would have believed, in the last years of the nineteenth century, that human affairs were being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man’s and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their affairs they were scrutinized and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinize the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. With infinite complacency men went to and fro over this globe about their little affairs, serene in their assurance of their empire over matter.
The clip below is ‘Thunder Child’, the warship that destroys two Martian tripods before being sunk.
Whilst I was looking for the clip to include in my post I discovered that there is a new version of Jeff Wayne’s classic album – Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of The War of the Worlds, the New Generation, to be released on 12 November, which features Liam Neeson, Gary Barlow, Joss Stone and Ricky Wilson.
Saturday Snapshot
Heidi’s new bed –
We bought this little bed yesterday and deliberately didn’t attempt to put Heidi in it or even to show it to her because cats are fussy creatures and like to find places to sleep for themselves. So we just left it on the worktop in the utility room, where she likes to sit and this morning this is where I found her. I’m so glad she likes it.
For more Saturday Snapshots see Alyce’s blog At Home with Books.
From the Archives: Biographies
This is a second post in which I’m following Simon’s example at Stuck in a Book of posts in which he revisits his old reviews. I’ve been looking back into my archives at biographies ‘“ triggered by Katrina’s post on Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca Notebook, which I’ve also read and written about in 2010.
So here’s a list of some of my posts on biographies of authors – with links to the posts, a short summary and a quotation from my review.
First of all two from 2007:
- Daphne by Margaret Forster – a biography of Daphne Du Maurier, the author of Rebecca etc
From my post: There is too much I could say about ‘Daphne’, not least that it is a candid account of her relationships, eg her troubled married life; wartime love affair; and friendships with Gertrude Lawrence and Ellen Doubleday, as well as an excellent source of information on Du Maurier’s method of writing and views on life.
- Lewis Carroll by Morton N Cohen – a biography of Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) a long post which has a somewhat controversial interpretation of some aspects of Dodgson’s life.
From my post: his account of Charles Dodgson’s life is basically chronological, but because he also looks at different aspects of Charles’s life it is a bit repetitive. As biographies go this is not one of the most straightforward or readable. It’s extremely detailed and at nearly 600 pages it is not a quick read.
One from 2008:
- Dear Dodie by Valerie Grove – biography of Dodie Smith, the author of I Capture the Castle etc.
From my post: It is very readable and gives a very full picture of Dodie’s life, and it has an excellent index (always a plus for me).
And two from 2009:
- Wild Mary by Patrick Marnham – biography of Mary Wesley, the author of Camomile Lawn and other books.
From my post: … I certainly wouldn’t like to have met Mary. She seems to have been a difficult and determined woman who aroused strong passions in those who knew and loved her.
- Jane Austen: a Life by Claire Tomalin – need I say anything about this author’s books?
From my post: My outstanding impression of the book is how amazingly detailed it is given the fact that few records of her life have survived.
Crime Fiction Alphabet: Letter R
This week I’ve chosen Peter Robinson‘s Bad Boy to illustrate the letter R in Kerrie’s Crime Fiction Alphabet.
Bad Boy is Peter Robinson’s 19th book in his Inspector Banks series, but I don’t think you have to have read the previous 18 because it functions OK as a stand-alone, as quite a lot of the back-story is included.
Description from the back cover:
Banks isn’t back, and that’s the problem.
If DCI Alan Banks had been in his office when his old neighbour came calling, perhaps it would have turned out differently.
Perhaps an innocent man would still be alive.
And perhaps Banks’s daughter wouldn’t be on the run with a wanted man.
But Banks is on holiday, blissfully unaware of the terrible chain of events set in motion by the discovery of a loaded gun in a young woman’s bedroom, and his daughter’s involvement with the ultimate bad boy . . .
My thoughts:
There’s not much more for me to write about this book. I didn’t think it was as interesting as the earlier ones of his that I’ve read. For one thing there’s not much of a mystery for Banks to solve and for another I didn’t like the graphic descriptions of violence it contains. It’s a police procedural to a certain extent, except of course, that Banks doesn’t actually always follow the set procedures.
Banks does come back from his holiday, down to earth with a vengeance as he sets out to rescue Tracy, his daughter from the wanted man, Jaff, the ‘bad boy’.
DI Annie Cabot obligingly gives a definition of a ‘bad boy’:
A bad boy is unreliable, and sometimes he doesn’t show up at all, or if he does, he’s late and moody, he acts mean to you and he leaves early. He always has another fire in the iron, somewhere else to be. But always while you’re waiting for him you can’t really concentrate on anything else, and you have at least one eye on the door in case he’s the next one to walk in the room, even though you might be seeing someone else, and when you’re with him your heart starts to beat a little faster and your breath catches in your chest. (page 163)
As for Banks, there are some interesting insights into his personality. He realises that he is ‘a stranger‘ to happiness, and that he has a restless nature which precluded happiness. If he wasn’t restless he either felt a vague sadness which was occasionally punctured with anger or irritation. He also realises that he hadn’t been a good parent, but he had felt inadequate and awkward with Tracy as she was growing up, not knowing how to communicate with her.
But, Banks is on the side of law and order, despite not always sticking to procedure:
If there was one part of the job Banks hated more than any other, it was that feeling of impotence and ineffectiveness he often felt by having dedicating himself to upholding the law, following the rules. He cut corners from time to time, like everyone, had occasionally acted rashly and even, perhaps, illegally, but on the whole, he was on the side of the virtuous and the good. (page 322)
And are there hints at the end about Banks’s future? He says he is ‘getting a bit tired of it all, to be honest.’ Do I sense that Peter Robinson is getting a bit tired of Banks too?
- Paperback: 448 pages
- Publisher: Hodder Paperbacks; 1st edition (28 April 2011)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0340836970
- ISBN-13: 978-0340836972
- Source: Library book
- My Rating: 3/5
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