When a senior police official is forced to take a vacation, what should he pursue in the goal of relaxation and enjoyment? For Commissaire Jules Maigret of the Parisian police, who is taking time off more or less under protest, but under orders from both his doctor and his wife to take a holiday to relieve some of the stress which is beginning to affect his health, the answer, really, is "more of the same": Maigret finds a way to continue his vacation while watching the progress of an investigation as an outsider. In other words, he remains on vacation, does not speak to investigators - not even his own assistant - and limits his knowledge of the facts surrounding the murder of a doctor's wife to what he can learn primarily by reading the newspapers, just like any other private citizen (even if he does send the occasional anonymous tipster letter, unsigned, to his assistant's office). To put it another way, Maigret Enjoys Himself, a 1957 entry in the series of Maigret books by Georges Simenon. It is the subject of today's audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and you can listen to the complete review by clicking here.
When Maigret learns, through the newspapers, that his assistant, Inspector Janvier, has been put in charge of an investigation into the murder of a doctor's wife, he forces himself to continue his vacation near home, in Paris. And while he obeys his doctor (and his wife!) and stays clear of Janvier and his investigation, he finds that he can’t resist playing the part of a man-in-the-street observing police routine at a distance. If he is on vacation, and must follow this murder case from outside, without his usual access to routine, to interviews, to official investigations, then he decides he will act the part of a bystander, just another member of the public who reads about murders in newspapers and comes up with questions on his own. For Maigret, this means that when he sees a question that needs to be answered, he will send an anonymous letter to Inspector Janvier, – the kind of letter tipsters are always sending off to the police investigators – suggesting questions which Maigret would be happy to have answered. At the same time, Maigret is also very conscious of his promises to his doctor – and, of course, to his wife – not to return to work. And so, as the title of the book has it, Maigret enjoys himself. And by approaching the case of murder as an outsider, he does find ways to keep his promises even as he passes along tips to Inspector Janvier (who remains unaware that Maigret is still in Paris and following developments in the case).
Penguin Books is continuing with its ambitious plan to reissue all of Simenon's books about Maigret - more than six dozen of them! - all in new English translations from the original French. David Watson is credited with the translation of Maigret Enjoys Himself, and it's a good, colloquial translation. It's amusing to watch Maigret as he tries to figure out how an unconnected "man in the street" might try to go about investigating a serious crime - and to see how he manages to pass along ideas to Janvier without letting him know that the ideas are coming from Maigret. I think it's one of the better books in the series, and I recommend it to you.
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