Customer Reviews

Maigret's Christmas

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These stories are excellent. All nine pose intriguing puzzles for Maigret and his colleagues to solve. What makes them special is the quality of the writing (just enough words to convey the image and no more) and the subtlety of the author who always seems to add a little bit more to the reader's perception of Maigret. There are great scenes between Maigret and his wife, Madame Maigret. Anyone married for any length of time will enjoy these little domestic battles. There are also some well drawn child characters whose interaction with Maigret is skillfully depicted. The reader always ends up admiring Maigret for his thoughtfulness and his persistance. He asks great questions of the witnesses to draw out the story. This collection of stories is outstanding.

Typically, a Maigret novel is easy reading. Four or five hours of light reading is all it takes to read a very good crime story. This lightness allows one to go on a Maigret binge where in the course of a week, two or three novels can polished off.

Miagret's Christmas is a collection of nine short stories. Some of the short stories are not so short, they are more like novellas. At 320 pages of small print, this book is by no means light reading. It took me a couple of weeks to finish the book.

Of the nine stories, I found four of them to be classic Georges Simenon. They were world class in their cleverness. The other five were good but not great. However, Georges Simenon's good is most writers very best. All and all a great book but a bit of slog.

for any Simenon fans. As always- Simenon is economical in expression- but still giving a full picture of the scene. I love this book because it allows- in one of the short stories- a closer look at Madame Maigret- and her personality. She is a shadowy character in the series, but always present.
The Holiday themed cover that is curently being used, makes it a nice Holiday gift as well. I also like that it is a bit longer than the usual Maigret- maning that it makes a good gift for someone about to go on a long train/plane or automobile trip!

Nine excellent short stories by a grand master of crime writing, Georges Simenon. Spanning the period from 1939 to 1956, Simenon explores the classic motives of greed, lust and jealousy in these stories which are mostly set in Paris. The opening short story--a novella really--takes place on Christmas day across the street from Maigret's apartment on Rue Richard Lenoir. Maigret solves the case, a break-in with a sighting of Father Christmas by a little girl--by asking the "what's wrong with the picture?" question, which is his most reliable tool in sorting out the majority of the crimes that come his way.

This is a terrific sampler of the best of Simenon's writing in the Maigret series. By the way, not every story is connected to the Christmas holiday, if that's of any importance to you. On the other hand, the collection itself is a present that will give you visions of Santa Claus and Christmas trees. A fine read.

As in a Japanese haiku, the season is vitally important in a Maigret story. It determines how energetically or sluggishly the chief inspector will pursue his inquiries, whether he'll catch cold - and the emotional ambiance surrounding the crime.

Despite the title of this collection, not all the stories are Christmas-themed, or even wintry. So you can read the book any time of year and enjoy a great variety of Simenon atmospheres.

The lead story, Maigret's Christmas, is quite poignant because the Maigrets are childless and Madam Maigret suffers keen regrets during this child-centered season.

In various other stories, Maigret follows in the footsteps of a pious but devious alter boy to solve a mystery... A grand passion for a mediocre man leads to contrivance and murder... Maigret pussyfoots around a case to spare the feelings of a lugubrious inspector who fears the boss will take over and get all the glory. There's even a delightful story without Maigret in which Lecoeur, least significant member of the police force, tracks a serial killer from his switchboard.

A novella, Maigret in Retirement, is included in the collection. I had read it already in another fine collection, Maigret Among the Rich.

I'm not a fan of short stories generally, but Simenon has the gift of creating a rich experience in fifteen or thirty-some pages, complete with engaging characters, plot twists and psychologically compelling mood.

In the mid-eighteen hundreds Mr. Poe invented the genres of modern literature, never to be surpassed in most. He invented the detective story in The Murders in the Rue Morgue: The Dupin Tales (Modern Library Classics) long before Holmes and Watson stalked in poor imposture their apartment in Baker Street. Poe's Auguste Dupin of Paris is the original, and the best.

One hundred years later Frenchman Georges Simenon created the long lived Inspector Maigret, whose brilliance, subtlety, insight and patience are unmatched in detective literature.

Unfortunately in our fallen age all that many know of the French detective is the banal and tiresome Inspector Clouseau; nevertheless, the proud and fascinating characters of DuPin and Maigret will long outlast that forgetable farce.

I admit I have long been a fan of Maigret, and of Simenon, whose long career embraced other novels of profound psychological interest, including Strangers in the house: Les inconnus dans la maison. I often grate at the unfortunate, traitorous and out-dated translations made into incompetent English (does anyone still use the word "vexed?"); yet I admit often enjoying the English cassette recordings, including recently the poorly mistitled (Errol Garner style) Inspector Maigret and the Strangled Stripper (Inspector Maigret Mysteries) or that series's compelling recording of None of Maigret's Business.

As a devoted fan admiring all things Maigret I therefore noticed the extremely accessible price of this present item, and thought it might be some brief momento of the immortal Inspector. Imagine thereafter my astonishment and my joy open receiving by mail this substantial volume, about 5 x 8 inches and over 325 pages long, a collection of nine tales written around 1950, translated by Jean Stewart.

Maigret here, after a very touching and telling and caring domestic scene, investigates a sighting of Santa; in another tale he employs a choirboy in the solving of a crime, and later follows a purposeful trail left by a child fleeing a criminal. We read here therefore another side of Maigret, as he works with and for children, always with the keenest psychological insight and subtlety of the author.

Look not here for Clouseau; the true humour here is much more subtle, much deeper, more true and real. Look not here for Kojak nor for blazing gunfire and shoot outs with hoodlums. Here you find no Mickey Spillane, but a patient, quiet, profound reflection of the people and the city of Paris in the post-war years, with no direct mention of that devastating and divisive war.

Here you will find nine excellent tales from this master storyteller. You will not be disappointed, but will find much to read and to reflect and to remember when life was like this, to rediscover our human nature.

Truly the continual portraiture of the intimate, quiet and deeply caring domestic life of Inspector and Madame Maigret must be read now in this era in which literature and we ourselves have lost this. Read this and remember, and receive the greatest gift of Maigret's Christmas, the great and unstated love of this matrimony.

I gave this book to my husband for Christmas and he enjoyed it very much.
He says it is a little tour of Paris.