Maigret's Holiday
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“One of the greatest writers of the twentieth century . . . Simenon was unequaled at making us look inside, though the ability was masked by his brilliance at absorbing us obsessively in his stories.” —The Guardian While on holiday, Inspector Maigret is drawn into the murder of a teenage girl and subsequent disappearance of her brother and must confront an evil that is hidden in plain sight During their holidays in Sables-d’Olonne, Maigret’s wife is hospitalized with appendicitis and Maigret receives a strange note instructing him to visit a patient in another ward. To solve the mysterious case that has left a young woman dead and her brother missing, Maigret must give one of his best performances yet in a story laced with mood, class tension, and in the end, of course, justice.
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Summary: Maigret goes on vacation. It doesn't go well. First his wife ends up in the hospital. Then, he gets an anonymous note asking him to visit someone at the hospital, but the woman dies, and he ends up seeking a killer on vacation.
I am not going to write a long review of this. I have been dipping in and out of Maigret for about six years. This is the 7th of the series I have read. I continue to enjoy them enough to keep reading. But I continue not to be blown away by them.
In this one, Maigret is on vacation with his wife. But she ends up in the hospital, and he is a bit lost.
I recently read The Black Tower by PD James (part of the Adam Dalgliesh series). In both books, the main character is a police homicide inspector. In The Black Tower, Dalgliesh himself is recovering from surgery, but both are officially off duty and are a bit irritated that their professional life seems to be following them. (The fourth Inspector Gamache is also about the inspector being on vacation and a murder happening.)
The idea of investigators or detectives never being able to get away from murder is both a joke and a trope. Dorothy Sayer named her last full Wimsey book Busman's Honeymoon, a phrase connoting how it isn't a vacation for a Bus Driver to take a bus to go away on vacation.
I picked up this book on audiobook in a buy-one-get-one-free sale. I will not complain about it because it was a good change of pace, and my cost was reasonable. But this is a series that, so far, I have enjoyed but not loved. And I don't know why. I have a couple more that I have picked up on sale in various formats, but I think unless something really grabs me in those, I probably will not buy any more.
Originally posted on my blog at https://bookwi.se/maigrets-holiday/
Featured Series
71 primary books73 released booksInspector Maigret is a 73-book series with 71 primary works first released in 1930 with contributions by Georges Simenon, David Bellos, and 35 others.
