Madame Maigret’s Friend
by Georges Simenon.
L’amie de Mme Maigret
translated by Howard Curtis.
Penguin Classics, 2016 (1950).
An anonymous message informs the Paris police that a certain Flemish bookbinder has been burning a corpse in his stove, and the accused man’s lawyer seems to have a vendetta against Inspector Maigret.
Meanwhile, the dinner Mme Maigret has prepared for her husband is burning to a crisp when a woman literally leaves her holding the baby – or rather toddler – in a park. Who is this friend of Mme Maigret, and what possible connection, if there is one, has this strange unexplained incident with Maigret’s case?
As ever the inspector’s investigations, with his team based at the Palais de Justice on the Quai des Orfèvres, take him all over Paris north of the Seine. For a while Maigret appears to be in a bind, but his steady piecing together of hints and clues from interviews and observations may yet yield solutions.
Continue reading “In a bind”
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