For this week's session "From the Vault," I've brought you a most distinguished visitor from France, Detective Chief Inspector Maigret, the central character in 75 novels and 28 short stories by the extremely prolific author, Georges Simenon. For a number of years, Penguin Books has been reprinting all the Maigret books in new (and generally excellent) translations, and I've reviewed some of them from time to time on recordings for the Classic Mysteries podcast. This week, I'm offering a lightly-edited transcript of my audio review of Maigret's first novel, a book called [NOTE: Link has been updated as of 10/11/2020] Pietr the Latvian. Enjoy!
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Inspector Maigret knew exactly what Pietr the Latvian would look like. The series of cables tracking Pietr’s movements through Europe, on his way to Paris, gave such specific information about his appearance, his physical characteristics, that there seemed to be no way that Maigret could mistake him for anyone else. He even knew the shape of the man’s ears, which should let him identify Pietr the Latvian without any error.
But that was before the trail became complicated. That was before the body of a man was discovered on the express train when it arrived in Paris – a body that might – or might not – be that of Pietr the Latvian. Especially since Maigret had watched Pietr walk off the train and out of the station. And then it became quite a search for Maigret – a search complicated by murder, by a man who might be an international swindler…or perhaps a married sea captain with a family…or perhaps a drunken Russian. It would be a dangerous – even deadly – job to sort it all out in Inspector Maigret’s first recorded case, called simply Pietr the Latvian, by Georges Simenon.
Pietr the Latvian was the very first novel to feature Inspector Jules Maigret. First serialized in 1930, it was published in book form the next year. Over the course of his very long career, Georges Simenon would produce 75 novels and a couple dozen short stories featuring Maigret. His books are generally fairly gritty, and Pietr the Latvian certainly has elements that any reader of today’s noir literature would recognize – it gets pretty grim, and there is little in the way of happy endings here. But there is Maigret, intelligent, big, indefatigable, a policeman who makes mistakes – sometimes fatal mistakes – but whose patience, persistence and general doggedness, combined with his sharp mind, can lead him along difficult and twisted paths to solving a difficult case.
Maigret’s skill lies in going beyond the routine cat-and-mouse game that detectives – fictional ones, at least – often find themselves in when confronting a criminal opponent. Here’s how Simenon describes it:
Maigret worked like any other policeman. Like everyone else, he used the amazing tools that men like Bertillon, Reiss and Locard have given the police…that have turned detection into forensic science. But what he sought, what he waited and watched out for, was the crack in the wall. In other words, the instant when the human being comes out from behind the opponent.
That’s what you find in a Maigret novel – and that’s certainly on display here. In the case of Pietr the Latvian, Maigret must tread carefully, because of the involvement of a major international financier. He must determine why Pietr may have been involved with two women at once – one who thought she was married to a traveling sea-captain, another whose husband seemed to be a drunken Russian. Were they the same person? It’s not easy to tell. Maigret must work from only a handful of clues – clues which may mean little to the reader until they are explained by Maigret. There are some elements of the police procedural, although Maigret seems quite willing to work outside those normal rules and regulations.
It’s a good story, and, although the book is quite short, it’s still very much a page-turner. Some of that, of course, may be because it started life as a serial – each chapter ends in a sort of cliffhanger that really does induce readers to keep on going. There’s a fair amount of violence here, some chases, some deaths.
Maigret books – in good English translations – have not been particularly easy to find for a while now. So it’s a relief to note that Penguin Books has reissued Pietr the Latvian in a new translation by David Bellos and has announced plans to reissue the entire series of Maigret novels. This is an excellent place to begin. [Ed. Note: as of mid-2020, the task appears to be nearly complete, so there are a great many good Maigret books now available, most in e-books and paperback editions. LB]
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You can listen to the complete audio review by clicking here.
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