A review by wahistorian
The Judge's House by Georges Simenon

4.0

I love Simenon's psychological novels the best, but if you can get the image and accent of BBC's Maigret out of your head, the Maigret mysteries are also intriguing. Simenon is a master at creating a palpable world for Maigret in which to operate; this time the murder takes place in the very working-class French coastal town L'Aiguillon to which the detective has been exiled. Full of gossips, fishermen, and down-at-heels professionals, L'Aiguillon is a perfect sad setting for this crime. "He might never return to L'Aiguillon," Maigret thinks of himself. "From now on, it would be like one of those distant landscapes, tiny but meticulously accurate, that you see in glass globes: a little world...People from far and wide" (161). A fun summer diversion.