"Maigret and the Saturday Caller"

It was really a new experience for Chief Inspector Maigret of the Parisian police:

"For the first time in his career, a man had come to find him after hesitating for weeks, after following him in the street, after writing to him, or so he claimed, and then tearing up the letters, after sitting for hours in the police waiting room, a man who did not seem in any way exceptional in his looks or his clothes, yet had contrived to introduce himself into his home, humble yet obstinate."

So here was this stranger, coming to Maigret’s apartment on a Saturday afternoon, no less. But the man had something important to say to Maigret – a secret that the visitor felt needed to be shared outside the office – and what that secret turned out to be might lead to murder. It’s the story of Maigret and the Saturday Caller, written by Georges Simenon in 1962. It's the subject of today's audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and you can listen to the entire review by clicking here.

Georges Simenon wrote some 75 novels about Maigret, along with dozens of short stories. For that matter, his total literary output included about 450 novels and short stories. Simenon was born in Belgium, and his books are written in French. Penguin is reprinting all of the Maigret books, in excellent translations into colloquial English. Maigret and the Saturday Caller first appeared in 1962, and it's pretty typical of the series: Maigret winds up investigating a crime, or occasionally preventing a crime, in what frequently turn out to be morally ambiguous circumstances. That's pretty much what happens in Maigret and the Saturday Caller, and the book, as usual, gives us a close-up look at the characters - victims as well as suspects and bystanders. The books are beautifully written; Simenon - and Maigret - care deeply about the people caught up in the events of the book. We readers are along for the ride. It’s a powerful and moving drama, and a good place to see why so many readers – and other authors, too – admire Simenon as they do. I think you’ll enjoy it.