Pietr the Latvian (Inspector Maigret)

By: Georges Simenon, David Bellos - translator

Narrated by: James Faulkner

In this first installment in Georges Simenon’s legendary Inspector Maigret series, M. Maigret hunts down an elusive and notorious confidence man, but finds that identifying him is a game of doubles, intrigue, and hidden crimes.

When Detective Chief Inspector Maigret receives notice from Interpol that Pietr the Latvian, an infamous con man, is on his way to Paris, he rushes to intercept him at the train station. But when he arrives he is confounded to find two men who fit the description of the wanted man. One is alive, the other dead.

So who is Pietr? A businessman or a bootlegger? Is he Latvian, American, or Russian? In order to find out, Maigret must use his keen understanding of human nature, his gift for observation, and his famous instincts to track down the true suspect in Pietr the Latvian, the first mystery in Georges Simenon’s iconic series.

A Macmillan Audio production from Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Euro-sleuthing between the wars

Euro-sleuthing between the wars

I miss confess that lately, as a means of counterbalancing the dense historical diving I have been doing and as a means of alleviating the legitimate concerns I have regarding the direction world politics is careening, I have been escaping into more fiction. And, as Apple sent me into the realm of Slow Horses and MGM+ led me down the path of Tony Hillerman's Dark Winds, BritBox likewise had provided ample opportunities to veer down the halls of mystery. Recently we had stumbled across Maigret, about an odd and intrepid Inspector for the French National Police, soon discovering that we were watching a contemporary retelling of two previous BBC series, one of which featured Rowan Atkinson in the title role. I discovered that #maigret had been a popular series of novels by prolific French author #georgessimenon who had written dozens of novels about the French sleuth.

Downloading the #audible version, perfected narrated by omnipresent British actor #jamesfaulkner , this first novel focuses on the events surrounding the discovery of a dead man in the toilet of a train that had arrived in Paris. The Chief Inspector finds himself on the trail of a mysterious, cultured man and his involvement with a wealthy American that brings Maigret on a mystery that spans Eastern Europe and Russia in an effort to unravel the identity of the killer. As in the television series, Madame Maigret plays the role of long-suffering wife who graciously bears her husbands silences and absences as he pursues the clues found in photographs, notes and the cryptic language unique to the International Criminal Police Congress, a forerunner to Europol, as Maigret's Flying Gang fan out throughout Paris to bring their Chief his clues which the bulky man silently contemplates and processes swirled in omnipresent pipe smoke.

Highly recommended and I am looking forward to the next in the series.

The dullness of nearly all the characters.

I couldn’t get interested in the sniveling and weak characters . I felt like they were walking around babbling in a grey haze. Didn’t do much to catch and hold my attention. I hope some of his other stories are better.