Maigret Hesitates

Inspector Maigret, Book 67

By: Georges Simenon

Narrated by: Gareth Armstrong

'Maigret looked at him in some confusion, wondering if he was dealing with a skilful actor or, on the contrary, with a sickly little man who found consolation in a subtle sense of humour.'

A series of anonymous letters leads Maigret into the wealthy household of an eminent lawyer and a curious game of cat and mouse with Paris high society.

©2020 Georges Simenon (P)2020 Audible, Ltd

Georges Joseph Christian Simenon (1903 – 1989)

Georges Joseph Christian Simenon (1903 – 1989) was a Belgian writer who claimed to have slept with 10,000 women in his search for "la femme." His literary output was nearly as prolific yet always quite good.

Seamless integration of big ideas and minute observations

From Sartre to HLA Hart, Simenon packages the biggest of the big ideas in the most economical of packages. Free will vs determinism, status crimes and the continuum of being and doing (Hart), and as always, the tacit acceptance of a huge double standard for behavior between classes, with no British-style hand-wringing. Like Stanley Kowalski says, it’s in the Napoleonic code. And the truly great Gareth Armstrong presents the book in a way that only an audiobook read/performed at this level can. Perfect match between material in a brilliant translation and presentation. These were available for while for free on YouTube and I’ve listened to all those (no longer available. I don’t mind paying for it to listen to it again. And the drinking and smoking! And just to get a dig in at the vastly overrated Lost Generation, Simenon’s Paris is alive in ways that make Hemingway and Fitzgerald look like the hacks they basically were. Sorry.