Simon’s Reviews > Maigret Has Scruples > Status Update

I am starting to really enjoy this, gone from one of my least favourite Maigret novels to one of the best. Simenon pushes the limits for how many dysfunctional and toxic relationship dynamics you can depict in a novel that's less than 150 pages long. (it's about a guy who thinks his wife is conspiring to murder him... and everyone involved turns out to be involved in an incredibly convoluted love dodecahedron)

I am giving this a re-read. I remember this as one of the less interesting Maigret novels but I am really enjoying it this time. Similar atmosphere as Henry Miller's "Quiet Days in Clichy" in that it depicts the darker and more dysfunctional aspects of mid-century Paris except here it focuses on people who still have to keep up appearances of normality and respectability.

I am very curious to see how this concludes, again this is NOT a murder mystery but a different set of connecting-the-dots. Even though there's a bigger influence from American crime novels of the time than in the older Maigrets I read, its entire atmosphere and vibe is very distinctly French.

the plot in this one actually plays more like a Raymond Chandler or Ross Macdonald style American detective novel than the other Maigrets I've read - side characters having extramarital affairs left and right, seemingly unrelated subplots converging, anonymous blackmailing and people suspecting they're being set up by hidden conspiracies

one of the old crime novels I found in the garbage bin as mentioned in my review for "A Study in Scarlet", and probably the one I am looking forwards to the most as the Maigret books are my favourite literary comfort food so to speak at least as far as crime fiction goes