Georges Simenon Books

Feeling more than a little mortal, the famous Inspector Maigret has been instructed by his physician to take the cure at Vichy. He and Mme. Maigret speedily develop a daily routine at the spa, and an interest in the characters they see around them. The most enigmatic of these personalities is one they name "the lady in lilac." Will Maigret be able to resist becoming involved when this lady becomes the center of a murder investigation?

I was in my twenties when I first read this beautifully observed and gently humorous novel, and I fell in love with it. Now older than Maigret is at the period of the book, I have just re-read it and found it even more poignant (and amusing) than before. Though it is not the typical Maigret, it is my favorite.

Maigret has been ordered to take the healing mineral waters at a famous city, giving him the opportunity to observe the investigation of a local crime and, naturally, solve it. Simenon's strong points are characterization and a vivid sense of locale, rather than a bang-up, surprise ending, but he gives us a neat little mystery here that unfolds at the end almost like a Christie. We also get to see much more of the pleasant, gentle Madame Maigret, and the sweet relationship of the Maigrets. My favorite of the series, even without Lucas, "fat" Torrence, and the whole gang back at Quai des Orfevres.

By the time of this novel, Maigret has risen high in the police ranks and does not have much opportunity to get involved in the dirty little crimes of the minor-league underworld of the Montmartre district. Due to an unusual series of events he gets his chance in this case of the disappearance of the owner of a chain of strip-tease clubs.

"Maigret Loses His Temper" is an excellent example of the Maigret technique (Maigret himself denies he has a technique) where he just goes about, seemingly at random, talking to people and gathering bits and pieces of information, and never theorizing until he sees a "pattern".

Plot is good, but not outstanding. Characters are, as usual for Simenon, excellent with even the lesser ones having well-defined personalities. The description of Montmartre its businesses, and its inhabitants is superb. This book is right up there with the best of the Maigrets.

The owner of a Montmarte strip club is found murdered. He has been strangled and his body has been dumped on a distant street. Jules Maigret knows that this is not a typical gangland killing. Mobsters do not strangle their victims and then carry them to another neighborhood.

This is a typical Maigret mystery. There is no gun play or fancy forensic work. Just the venerable Chief Inspector Maigret walking around the streets of Montmarte using his considerable mental skills to solve a murder.

Goerges Simenon wrote over 200 novels. Over 500 million copies of his novels have been published. Inspector Jules Maigret is one of the all time greatest characters of detective fiction. "Maigret Loses his Temper" is a good example of Georges Simenon's craft.

The setting is Paris in the 1930's. A starving Czech medical student nurses his coffee and eats his yogurt in a fashionable Montmartre bar. A popular American socialite goes about his glamorous life unaware that the quiet man in the corner is planning his destruction. Enter Inspector Maigret, the taciturn and brilliant detective. Soon the high strung medical student and the deep thinking Maigret are engaged in a war of nerves.

There is just something special about Paris during the interwar years. It is a deep well from which many of the worlds great espionage and mystery writers have drawn. What makes Goerges Simenon's Maigret so special is that he is a contemporary. Maigret's Paris and the criminal world which he inhabits are drawn from Simenon's direct on the spot experience and not from the history books.

Although not strictly speaking one of Georges Simenon's "psychological novels", Maigret's War of Nerves nonetheless explores the psychology of several characters. Detective Maigret arranges the `escape' from prison of a convicted killer that he helped put away in the first place. Maigret had become convinced of the defendant's guilt, but the evidence at trial had been overwhelming. In this 1940 work, Maigret places his well-established career at risk.

Maigret slowly unravels the mystery behind the true killer, but will it be enough to save the wrongly convicted man or Maigret's own reputation? Simenon leads the reader through an examination of the most basic and most extreme human motivations. Simenon wrote dozens of Maigret mysteries as well as other `romans durs'. Maigret's War of Nerves is one of his better efforts.

Simenon is known for his mystery novels, but this book, one of his best, isn't a mystery at all. It's the story of André Bar, sixteen years old, living what should be a charmed life in the Côte d'Azur in France. His father is rich, his mother is beautiful, he gets top grades in school and he has a pretty, sympathetic girlfriend. So what's his problem? His problem is his parents, who use him as a sounding board to vent their grievances against each other. Although they dote on him, they loathe each other, and lacking confidants among their acquaintance, they turn André into their confessional, forcing him to listen to what he doesn't want to hear and doesn't want to know. The only one André can turn to for understanding is his girlfriend, whose own parents are everything he wishes his parents were and aren't.

There is no mystery here and very little action; "The Confessional" is simply a keen and poignant exploration of the death of childhood illusions. It's an exquisite little gem of a novel about the loneliness of adolescence and a boy who must find for himself the love and understanding he can't find at home. André comes to realize that, whatever his parents problems are, he can't let them make their problems his own; and the story ends with him developing the beginning of the hard shell of adulthood that will allow him to focus on making his own way in the world. For now, he will concentrate on passing his end-term exams. There will be time, after that, for his adult life to begin.

This is my favorite of all of Simenon's novels. It's the story of an unhappily married man who finds a strange way to deal with his marital problems. The story is intriguing, the characters are unforgettable, and the neighborhood where the book unfolds is so powerfully described that I feel like I've been there. This is a book that will haunt you--highly recommended.

A mysterious letter lures Maigret into an elegant but bizarre Parisian home.

Maigret has received crank letters, but this one bears a difference - carefully written on sumptuous stationery, it states that a murder might take place but that the correspondent is unsure who the murderer and, in fact, who the victim will be. Maigret has no trouble tracing the stationary to the home of the Parendon family; from there on, however, clues to the potential crime are difficult to trace. In his inimitable way, Sienon has crafted a superb mystery and also drawn, with compassionate insight and clinical precision, a remarkable portrait of the obsessive personality

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Georges Joseph Christian Simenon (February 13, 1903-September 4, 1989) was a Belgian writer who wrote in French.

I was disappointed in this collection, and it really doesn't show Simenon at his best. In fact, I can't honestly say there is a single compelling story here, which is certainly not something one usually says about Simenon!

Although not commonly heard of nowadays (in the English speaking world at least) Georges Simenon was a very prolific writer of the detective genre, most famous for his Maigret series (with well over a hundred books stretching from 1931 all the way to 1972!!). Maigret is basically a French response to detectives like Sherlock Holmes. Not as interested in physical evidence and the rational, he seeks to understand the characters behind the cases and their often tragic lives. Maigret has an aspect of humanism and warmth throughout the books, especially for those less fortunate in French society. His cases present an element of uncertainty that is natural when dealing with people and are thus much more realistic than Sherlock Holmes type stories (although less satisfying "logically").

This particular book describes Maigret's wrestling with some American gangsters that come to Paris for unknown reasons and then amongst other things, kidnap his unpleasant/pathetic colleague Lognon. The whole book follows a culture clash as the gangsters and the people Maigret talks to about the case, such as Poccho the dodgy Sicilian-born US expat, are much more direct and familiar, and are used to resisting police. There is also an element of pride as everyone tells Maigret not to bother - these aren't your French amateurs but real American gangsters who don't much about. But of course he shows them!

The Maigret novels may not be profound literature but they are extremely well written, compassionate and involving detective stories. This one is like a clash of genres with the 1920s gangster book and the Maigret empathetic-but-tough-French-detective-book coming together.

If I had to stick to a maximum of ten writers or so to read and re-read for the rest of my life one of them would be Simenon. He's such a genius it's hard to me to start describing his narrative skills.

Despite how great the killer plot is the book is also a great insight into the life of Kees Popinga, a character who spends his quiet life of peaceful citizen of Holland lying to himself and pretending that that's the only life he wants to carry while secretly he stares sadly at the many trains that leave to another countries. One day his boss fakes his own suicide and leaves in a hurry leaving his company bankrupt. Popinga loses all his money and takes a dangerous determination that will change his life forever.

Sad, vivid, intelligent and thrilling are the adjectives that come to my mine when I think of this novel. This might be the best Simenon I've ever read. If the above rating allowed me I'd give it 6 stars.

Charlotte Godebieu...beautiful, able, wicked...has killed a man. With the aid of her comrade and lover, Joseph Mittel, she steals funds and makes good her escape. The two are smuggled to South America by Captain Mopps, a man unfazed by circumstance, the law, or fate. For Mittel there is no time to think; everything happens "as in a dream, a nightmare." He finds himself manipulated by Charlotte and patronized by Mopps...and part of a love triangle with fatal consequences.