Maigret at the Gai-Moulin. [Paperback]

Georges. SIMENON (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Harcourt; First Edition. first thus edition (1991)
• ASIN: B000OJ3WEI
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Younger Inspector Maigret, April 6, 2000

By 

Olive Smith (Newport Beach, California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Maigret at the Gai-Moulin (Hardcover)

You can compare my review to the other one on this book. OUr views are not the same.

I found this book, which I read in French while living in California, to be a delight. It takes place in Liege, in the country of Simenon's birth, long before most of the novels. And part of the suspense (for it is a suspense murder mystery) is waiting for Maigret to appear.

Eventually the large figure in his dark winter overcoat enters the story, well supplied with his pipe(s) and tobacco, his mind racing over possibilities. And we are not disappointed, even after reading countless later stories. Not only does Simenon give us a satisfactory ending, but we have a splendid picture of an almost "old world" Liege and the kind of people who lived and worked in it.

No, definitely not just a "holiday book", this. Rather, a book for all seasons. Give it a try and you will agree.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A different Maigret, May 31, 2003

By 

ED (France, Normandy) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Maigret at the Gai-Moulin (Paperback)

Atmosphere is stranger than in others Maigret's novels. But it's also very good novel. If you have read "Pedigree" (Simenon's childhood autobiography) you can make interesting parallels between one of the two young boys and Simenon himself. It seems to say to us that the line between criminals and the other humans isn't very large ...

4.0 out of 5 stars Maigret lays siege in Liege, December 25, 2009

By 

Blue in Washington "Barry Ballow" (Washington, DC United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Maigret at the Gai-Moulin (Paperback)

Georges Simenon sends his intrepid Parisian detective Maigret to Liege, Belgium in this nifty little crime novel of murder, larceny and international intrigue. A Greek national of mysterious background is murdered after spending an evening in a seedy Liege nightclub. Two adolescent boys become involved when their own attempts to raid the boite's cash register go awry. Inspector Maigret has meanwhile entered the scene, identified as an unknown, "broad-shouldered" stranger by everyone that the Belgian police pull in to question about the Greek's murder. As always, Maigret suspects that the basest of human motives is at the bottom of the seemingly complicated murder, and ultimately solves the first crime while uncovering a second, larger one.

"Maigret at the Gai-Moulin" is a neat little package of a story that visits some of Simenon's favorite themes: human foibles, abuses of wealth and power, and the social and economic gaps between the monied and working classes. This is a fine read in the Harcourt series of Georges Simenon reprints that go all the way back to the 1930s. These books are usually witty, evocative of the place and period and right-on successors to the writings of Emile Zola and others that preceded Simenon. Recommended.