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My Friend Maigret (Penguin Modern Classics)
 
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My Friend Maigret (Penguin Modern Classics) (Paperback)

by Georges Simenon (Author)
3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)

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Product details

  • Paperback: 176 pages
  • Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd (29 May 2003)
  • ISBN-10: 0141187328
  • ISBN-13: 978-0141187327
  • Product Dimensions: 19.4 x 12.8 x 1.4 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 865,210 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

Product Description

Maigret is going about his work in rainy Paris, followed around by Inspector Pyke who has come from Scotland Yard to study the famous French detective's methods. Routine is disturbed when Maigret receives a telephone call from the island of Porquerolles off the Mediterranean coast. A small-time crook has been murdered, the night after he had fervently declared his friendship with Maigret in front of a large group of the island's inhabitants. Maigret and Inspector Pyke leave the greyness of Paris for the sunshine of Porquerolles where Simenon creates a wonderfully evocative atmosphere of the square and cafe, the brilliant sea, the humidity in the air and the life and individuality of each of the inhabitants on the small island.


About the Author

Georges Simenon was born at Liege in Belgium in 1903. He published over 160 books and his work has been admired by almost all the leading French and English critics. His books have been translated into more than 20 languages and more than 40 have been filmed.

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My Friend Maigret (Penguin Modern Classics)
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Customer Reviews

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Average Customer Review
3.0 out of 5 stars (3 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars A study of Maigret, 21 Aug 2009
This review is from: My Friend Maigret (Pocket Penguin Classics) (Paperback)
Maigret leaves a rainy Paris for the balmy Mediterranan island of Porquerolles, three miles from the French coast, where he investigates the murder of Marcellin (also known as Marcel Picaud), a thug, drunkard, thief and pimp - in other words a "mauvais garcon". He is accompanied by Mr Pyke, a British detective who is shadowing Maigret to studying his method of working.

There are so many characters in My Friend Maigret that I got confused part way through this book and had to go back to sort out in my mind who they all were. Maigret, however, didn't have the same problem as he talked to them all in connection with the murder.

The main point of interest for me was not who did the murder as the character of Marcellin remains indistinct throughout the book; he is just a small-time crook who claimed to be Maigret's friend and that appears to be why he was killed. No one has left the island since the murder took place and at first there are no obvious suspects but gradually as Maigret meets and talks to the local people he discovers the truth and through analysis and intuition solves the crime. The interest for me lay in the relationship between Maigret and Mr Pyke, the very proper British detective, and in the location on the island of Porquerolles.

Maigret and Pyke are very different characters,and Maigret feels inhibited and irritated by his presence. He worries about whether Pyke is criticising him for drinking, smoking and his general behaviour - was he acting as a detective should? He almost seems to develop an inferiority complex and be feeling very self-conscious. He looks at himself in the mirror and tells himself "That's the divisional chief inspector!"

Much is made of the differences between the French Maigret and the English Mr Pyke - in the food and drinks they like, their style of clothes, and the way they speak - Maigret vague and thoughtful, whereas Mr Pyke is methodical and speaks in clipped precise sentences.

Maigret's vagueness is enhance on the island where the heat makes him feel sleepy and he loses the desire to work. Porquerolles, set in a silky sea that is an incredible blue, is conjured up by the sights, sounds and smells that Simenon scatters throughout the book. There are the smells of food, bouillabaise and saffron oil, wine, mimosa, eucalyptus and fresh coffee; and the sound of bells on Sunday, the noise of the boules players, the laughter and conversation in the Grand Hotel and the sound of the sea.

My thoughts as I finished this book were that it's not so much a crime or detective story, but it's really a study of Maigret himself, and of life on a small Mediterranean island.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars More Characters than Crime, 15 Aug 2008
As is often the case with Maigret, this is a study more of people and places than the crime that's taken place, in this case the slow, measured pace of life on a Mediterranean island, its people living out small, unhurried lives, and Maigret himself forced to assess his own thinking and behaviour in the company of an observer from Scotland Yard. Engrossing and as well-written as ever and an intriguing change from Maigret on the busy streets of Paris.
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3 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars Routine, 13 Dec 2006
This review is from: My Friend Maigret (Pocket Penguin Classics) (Paperback)
This is a fairly routine police procedural. The descriptions of the Mediterranean island are good, but too many characters are introduced, so that it is difficult to become really interested in any of them. There are no plot twists before the end, so that too much of the book is taken up by the routine of investigation. Maigret is accompanied by an English police officer who is studying French methods, but this does little to enliven the proceedings. Apparently connoisseurs of Maigret prefer the earliest works, published during the 1930s; this one was first published in 1949.
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