Maigret and the Good People of Montparnasse

By Georges Simenon

Book Overview

"A writer as comfortable with reality as with fiction, with passion as with reason." --John Le Carr

When he is tasked with solving a seemingly motiveless murder, Inspector Maigret must rely on his famous intuition to discover the truth

A retired manufacturer is found murdered with his own pistol in his favorite armchair, shattering the tranquility of a quiet Paris community. The neighbors describe the Josselin household as a bastion of bourgeois compatibility, and Inspector Maigret is stymied by the absence of motive and by the reticence of the bereaved wife. It is not until a chance witness recalls an odd encounter between the deceased and a man in a bistro that the veil of propriety protecting the killer begins to dissolve.

Maigret suspects that he's not being given all the facts in this case as he is drawn deeper into the complex web of family dramas and lies at the heart of it. In Maigret and the Good People of Montparnasse, he must rely on his famous intuition above all to uncover the shocking truth.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0241303931
• ISBN13: 9780241303931
• Release Date: April 2019
• Publisher: Penguin Books
• Length: 160 Pages
• Weight: 0.32 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.1" x 7.6"

Customer Reviews

Utterly charming

Maigret in Society is also available in a collection of mysteries under the title Maigret Among the Rich. I read it by itself, before acquiring the collection. In this delightful little book Maigret finds himself in a vanished world, when he's called to solve the case of the Comte de Saint-Hilaire, a former ambassador, shot dead in his library. The first mystery that confronts Maigret is that the Comte was carrying on a romance every day of his life, purely by letter, for 55 years with the Princess Isabelle de V- (he called her Isi). The Comte and Isi are like characters out of a book, people from the eighteenth century who wandered into the twentieth. Isi's marriage to the Prince was a marriage of state, arising from the need for certain ancient families to marry wealth and position. The Prince knew all about his wife's innocent little romance, and didn't mind a bit. In fact everyone in their exalted circle knew all about it. The bizarre morality of "these people" is foreign territory to the chief inspector. Maigret is having trouble finding a motive, too, since nobody gains unduly by the Comte's death. The old housekeeper Jacquette must know something, but her reserve is impenetrable, her loyalty to the Comte absolute. The truth, Maigret suspects, is simple. And yet it eludes him. This is a poignant tale about a love kept forever young between two old people. And it's quite charming to watch the case stir up Maigret's own romantic susceptibilities!