Review: MAIGRET IN NEW YORK, Georges Simenon

• format: Kindle (Amazon)
  
• File Size: 756 KB
• Print Length: 192 pages
• Publisher: Penguin; Reprint edition (January 7, 2016)
  Originally published 1947
• Publication Date: January 7, 2016
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services LLC
• Language: English
• ASIN: B015X4XSAG
• alternative title: MAIGRET GETS ANGRY
• This edition translated by Linda Coverdale

Synopsis (Amazon)

Maigret's first impressions of the USA colour this sparkling new translation, book twenty-seven of the new Penguin Maigret series.

What was it about him that had struck Maigret so forcefully? . . . Little John had cold eyes! . . . Four or five times in his life, he had met people with cold eyes, those eyes that can stare at you without establishing any human contact.

Persuaded to sail to New York by a fearful young law student, Maigret finds himself drawn into the city's underworld, and a wealthy businessman's closely guarded past.
Penguin is publishing the entire series of Maigret novels in new translations.

My Take

Maigret has retired to the Loire Valley but his services are still in demand. A young man is brought to see him by an elderly lawyer. Jean Maura is a law student whose father John Maura is an American millionaire living in New York.  Jean has become concerned that his father's life is in danger and he wants Maigret to accompany him to New York. They embark 10 days later.

What follows is a strange investigation, made stranger by Jean Maura's disappearance from  the boat when they arrive in New York. Maigret is frustrated in attempts to find him but arrival formalities and continues to the hotel without him. He has some difficulty in getting to see John Maura and is amazed at the father's seeming lack of concern at his son's disappearance.

Maigret finds that his English is not really adequate for the simplest of tasks and he calls up a French-speaking NYPD detective whom he met years before through an investigation in Paris. O'Brien provides his assistance and Maigret manages to piece together John Maura's history and eventually works out what is happening.

Simenon obviously wanted to write a novel about New York - he had recently arrived in 1947 - incorporating his own experiences and impressions, but also including comment on the influence of the Sicilian Mafia in economic affairs. There are some very strange characters in this novel, and from this distance some not-quite-believable plot lines.

I read this book for my participation in Crimes of the Century, on Rich Westwood’s Past Offences for 1947.  Make a stop over at Past Offences to read the suggestions of other participants.

My rating: 4.0

See a review at A Crime is Afoot.

I've also read
4.4, MAIGRET & the MAN on the BOULEVARD
4.5, MAIGRET & THE HEADLESS CORPSE
4.3, PIETR THE LATVIAN
THE LATE MONSIEUR GALLET
4.4, THE RULES OF THE GAME
4.2, THE MAN WHO WATCHED THE TRAINS GO BY
4.3, THE CARTER OF LA PROVIDENCE
4.3, LOCK NO 1. Maigret #18