In Maigret and the Old People, Georges Simenon’s multi-faceted, fascinating Inspector Maigret investigates the shooting death of a former ambassador, Count de St.-Hilaire, who was leading a quiet life and completing his memoirs. The death requires Maigret to delve into Paris’ upper crust, peopled with ambassadors, counts, and even princesses. Written in 1960, Simenon depicts a world that was aging in every sense: its inhabitants were mostly old, but the importance connected to nobility, centuries’-old wealth, and arranged marriages also feels ancient, stiff, and unreal in comparison to the rest of modern society. Indeed, Maigret, who featured in over a hundred novels and short stories by Georges Simenon, is impatient with all of this crusty upper class, from the diplomats who seek to hide inconvenient secrets about the ambassador, to the deceased’s servant, who will protect his reputation at any cost.
Shaun Whiteside’s translation, published by Penguin as part of a renaissance of all of the Inspector Maigret novels, maintains the economy of language that makes Simenon’s work so powerful. Maigret and the Old People alludes to the Maigret canon – including Maigret’s connection to French elite through his childhood – but could be a worthwhile introduction to a newcomer to Simenon.
January 27, 2020