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8797999's review against another edition
4.0
I quite enjoyed this one, a sad but satisfying conclusion. Slowly but surely finishing this series, maybe I will get it finished this year.
peter7's review against another edition
challenging
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5
sethlynch's review against another edition
4.0
This book was published in 1960 along with three others. Four books in a year was not an unusual occurrence for Georges Simenon. He has claimed that he could write a novel in eleven days. Those days were spent locked in a study where he would go into a frenzied trance and live out the book. I’m not sure I believe him – the books I have read of his seem too well written to have been churned out in eleven days. He produced something like two-hundred novels over his life time, along with another couple of hundred novellas and short story collections.
I’m not so keen on the Maigret novels once the move beyond the 1930′s and 1940′s. I haven’t been able to discern why not. I do like reading them and they are good stories. I think it is something to do with the character of Maigret. There is something I don’t really like about him. This something is less obvious in the early novels. Perhaps it is his complacency. Whatever it is hasn’t stopped me buying his books – this one is probably the tenth I have read in the series.
Simenon (despite my slight dislike of Maigret) is probably one of my favourite writers. This is a fact which caught me unawares one day. His crime novels – outside the Maigret series – are excellent. The Maigrets are good but these are in a higher class. A particular favourite is Stain on the Snow. The Blue Room is also a fantastic book. Both of them are sordid, dealing with pettiness and bitterness. The crimes are virtually pointless. Yet these two books are excellent studies on the human condition. The disgusting man from Stain on the Snow becomes something of a hero – not because he improves but because the people round are so much worse. The events in The Blue Room are being recounted to an examining magistrate investigating the murder of the man’s wife. He had never meant to kill her, never intended for her to be killed, and yet…it’s on Amazon if you want to read it. If you live in a town larger than Douglas it may also be in a bookshop too.
I’m not so keen on the Maigret novels once the move beyond the 1930′s and 1940′s. I haven’t been able to discern why not. I do like reading them and they are good stories. I think it is something to do with the character of Maigret. There is something I don’t really like about him. This something is less obvious in the early novels. Perhaps it is his complacency. Whatever it is hasn’t stopped me buying his books – this one is probably the tenth I have read in the series.
Simenon (despite my slight dislike of Maigret) is probably one of my favourite writers. This is a fact which caught me unawares one day. His crime novels – outside the Maigret series – are excellent. The Maigrets are good but these are in a higher class. A particular favourite is Stain on the Snow. The Blue Room is also a fantastic book. Both of them are sordid, dealing with pettiness and bitterness. The crimes are virtually pointless. Yet these two books are excellent studies on the human condition. The disgusting man from Stain on the Snow becomes something of a hero – not because he improves but because the people round are so much worse. The events in The Blue Room are being recounted to an examining magistrate investigating the murder of the man’s wife. He had never meant to kill her, never intended for her to be killed, and yet…it’s on Amazon if you want to read it. If you live in a town larger than Douglas it may also be in a bookshop too.
chyde's review against another edition
4.0
One of the better Maigret's. It was interesting seeing the differences between court cases in the US and France (though several decades ago). It was a good contrast to the definitely not as good book, Maigret at the Coroner's (I'm glad actually that I read that one first). I wouldn't suggest this book to a first time Maigret reader, it's more for those that already like the series. Still it's interesting and a good one.
furfff's review
3.0
Not the best one in the series by any stretch, with a lot of overt problematic aspects (at least for me) and yet... it's a really interesting one that, if rearchitected, could have been great. There's even something in the bones of this one that I could see being lifted by another modern writer and turned into some noir classic. That said...
It's a weird book structurally, with far too much telling and not enough showing, with the first half of Maigret being called on to testify as an expert in court, and then in the second half with Maigret playing armchair quarterback on the phone, sending members of the force to do his investigation while he gets exhaustive recaps on the phone. As the plot unfolds, there's a lot of rich stuff here, in terms of the double murder itself, as well as the specific circumstances that seem to exonerate some and implicate... who? But there's a smaller story here between the brothers and the wife of the one that feels underexplored (and again, ripe for revisiting by some other author).
The Maigret episodes I tend to like the best are the ones where the case feels almost incidental to the smaller opportunities that are taken to evoke landscape or a character's interior or (as Simenon often excels at) both. This book is fairly light on the further shading of character. In fact, the final page's attempt to suggest the degree to which all of this affected Maigret himself feels... unearned. So what I do like about this book isn't the character development and isn't even the actual plot, but the idea of the plot was super intriguing.
So while this one doesn't get as high a rating as others from me, I will continue to recall it for the interesting "ideas of a novel" that it raises, even though it itself doesn't entirely succeed.
It's a weird book structurally, with far too much telling and not enough showing, with the first half of Maigret being called on to testify as an expert in court, and then in the second half with Maigret playing armchair quarterback on the phone, sending members of the force to do his investigation while he gets exhaustive recaps on the phone. As the plot unfolds, there's a lot of rich stuff here, in terms of the double murder itself, as well as the specific circumstances that seem to exonerate some and implicate... who? But there's a smaller story here between the brothers and the wife of the one that feels underexplored (and again, ripe for revisiting by some other author).
The Maigret episodes I tend to like the best are the ones where the case feels almost incidental to the smaller opportunities that are taken to evoke landscape or a character's interior or (as Simenon often excels at) both. This book is fairly light on the further shading of character. In fact, the final page's attempt to suggest the degree to which all of this affected Maigret himself feels... unearned. So what I do like about this book isn't the character development and isn't even the actual plot, but the idea of the plot was super intriguing.
So while this one doesn't get as high a rating as others from me, I will continue to recall it for the interesting "ideas of a novel" that it raises, even though it itself doesn't entirely succeed.
furfff's review against another edition
3.0
More like 3.5. And for what it's worth, this is not a Maigret courtroom drama like the Goodreads synopsis suggests. That's another book. Anyway, this was an interesting one to read on the heels of Blind Path (from the two story collection Lost Moorings), in that both books are interested in justice and truth and the importance of context as justification for an act, but Blind Path was slavishly Dostoyevskian to the point of no joy. Justice, on the other hand, has a lot more zing in its step, with its tail of a not a good guy who has done a lot of not good things but maybe not the one not-good-thing he's on trial for. For a novel written so long ago, it's interesting/saddening to see how apropos it still feels (there's even a "gloves don't fit" moment). It does get bogged down a little in the end with the very Simenon-ish back and forth dialog that occassionally sacrifices interest for authenticity, but overall, a worthwhile read.
lnatal's review against another edition
3.0
From Tout Simenon:
En Cour d'assises, à la barre des témoins, Maigret rend compte de l'enquête qu'il a menée huit mois auparavant à propos du meurtre d'une vieille dame et de sa petite pensionnaire, meurtre qui a permis au coupable de s'emparer d'une somme importante. Une accusation anonyme, des taches de sang sur un costume, une traite urgente à payer, autant d'indices qui ont permis à la police d'inculper l'encadreur Gaston Meurant du meurtre de sa tante, Léontine Faverges, et de la petite Cécile Perrin. Cependant, faute de preuves suffisantes, l'accusé est acquitté après un procès houleux où des témoignages inattendus font rebondir l'enquête.
Opening lines:
Était-il venu ici deux cents, trois cents fois ? davantage encore ? Il n'avait pas envie de les compter, ni de se remémorer chaque cas en particulier, même les plus célèbres, ceux qui étaient entrés dans l'histoire judiciaire, car c'était le côté le plus pénible de sa profession. La plupart de ses enquêtes, pourtant, n'aboutissaient-elles pas à la Cour d'Assises, comme aujourd'hui, ou en Correctionnelle ? Il aurait préféré l'ignorer, en tout cas rester à l'écart de ces derniers rites auxquels il ne s'était jamais complètement habitué.
A TV adaptation was made based on this book: Maigret aux assises (1971), with Jean Richard, Jacques Serres, Muriel Baptiste.
En Cour d'assises, à la barre des témoins, Maigret rend compte de l'enquête qu'il a menée huit mois auparavant à propos du meurtre d'une vieille dame et de sa petite pensionnaire, meurtre qui a permis au coupable de s'emparer d'une somme importante. Une accusation anonyme, des taches de sang sur un costume, une traite urgente à payer, autant d'indices qui ont permis à la police d'inculper l'encadreur Gaston Meurant du meurtre de sa tante, Léontine Faverges, et de la petite Cécile Perrin. Cependant, faute de preuves suffisantes, l'accusé est acquitté après un procès houleux où des témoignages inattendus font rebondir l'enquête.
Opening lines:
Était-il venu ici deux cents, trois cents fois ? davantage encore ? Il n'avait pas envie de les compter, ni de se remémorer chaque cas en particulier, même les plus célèbres, ceux qui étaient entrés dans l'histoire judiciaire, car c'était le côté le plus pénible de sa profession. La plupart de ses enquêtes, pourtant, n'aboutissaient-elles pas à la Cour d'Assises, comme aujourd'hui, ou en Correctionnelle ? Il aurait préféré l'ignorer, en tout cas rester à l'écart de ces derniers rites auxquels il ne s'était jamais complètement habitué.
A TV adaptation was made based on this book: Maigret aux assises (1971), with Jean Richard, Jacques Serres, Muriel Baptiste.
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