Maigret Sets a Trap - Georges Simenon

 Maigret Sets a Trap dates from 1955, the year I was born.   It is vintage Maigret, written when Simenon was at the height of his power.   Women are being attacked in Montmarte, their clothing slashed, their throats cut.   The police haven't a clue to work with - until Maigret gets chatting with a psychiatrist, Professor Tissot, at dinner one evening.

Simenon's great contribution to crime literature was the pschological angle.   Here, Professor Tissot develops an early version of a criminal profile, diagnosing the kind of man who would be most likely to commit such a series.   He also hazards an equally ahead-of-its-time geographical profile.   The killer must know Montmarte like the back of his hand.   If not living locally, he must certainly have spent considerable time there.

Maigret is thus able to track down his suspect.   He does this via a single jacket button, snatched from the attacker's suit.   But while Maigret is questioning the suspect at the Quai des Orfevres another woman is killed up in Montmarte.   Maigret remains convinced that he has the serial killer in custody.   So the latest killing must be a copycat.

Having set a trap to catch the suspect, Maigret (or Simenon, typically playing with our expectations) sets another to catch the copycat.

I'd forgotten how great Maigret can be.   It must be twenty years since I read one.   I'm glad I read this.

In Matto's Realm - Friedrich Glauser

 

A real discovery!  Friedrich Glauser (1896-1938) is called the Swiss Simenon but is far more interesting.  Here, he sets his story in a Psychiatric Clinic - the director has gone missing as has one of his patients, a self-confessed child killer.  For most writers this would mean a great deal of painful research.  Not for Glauser, a schizophrenic who had spent long periods of time in such clinics.  On top of that he was addicted to morphine and opium, had done time for forging prescriptions, and had served in the Foreign Legion.  He wasn't even Swiss - he was born in Vienna.

So what does a madman make of the madhouse?  He of course has great sympathy for the patients, but also the staff.  The most compelling character in the novel is Dr Ernst Laduner, the deputy director, who has a smile that looks like it's been pasted on, eccentric verbal tics and a taste for sometimes brutal experimentation.  And then there's Glauser's series detective, Sergeant Jakob Studer, formerly an inspector but busted back to sergeant, aged fifty, by his bete noir Colonel Caplaun, whose alcoholic son just happens to be a patient of Dr Laduner.

The story grips like a vice.  We become fully conversant with this alien world and its inhabitants.  The year is 1936.  In Germany radical events are underway but all we hear of them is an unidentified voice ranting on the radio.  This is clearly Hitler, who would have no toleration whatsoever for someone like Glauser.  And this is Glauser's genius - we have to work these things out for ourselves, though we are left in no doubt about Studer's antipathetic views on fascism.  Indeed, Studer does many things we might not expect of a heavily-built German-speaking cop coming up to retirement.

It's a thrilling, fascinating and in many ways beautiful book.  At this halfway stage of the year, it's my favourite read of 2021.

Bird in a Cage - Frederic Dard

Another forgotten period gem from Pushkin Vertigo. Frederic Dard (1921-2000) was the native French equivalent of Simenon. Like Simenon, Dard churned out several hundred novels (his equivalent of Maigret was San-Antonio) and, like Simenon, he wrote so many bestsellers that he became a tax exile in Switzerland.

Like Simenon, his best novels are the standalone noir thrillers of which this is one, dating from 1961. It's very short - only 120 pages. Everything is pared down to the bone. Everything takes place on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Albert returns home after six years in prison. He killed his girlfriend in a fit of jealousy. His mother has died while he was away. Her flat is full of memories. He pops out for a Christmas drink. He meets a beautiful young woman and her daughter. The child is up way beyond her bedtime, so Albert carries her to the woman's apartment. He makes overtures. His overtures are not repulsed. Then things get really weird.

The twist, as so often in noir, is both breath-taking and, on reflection, really silly. Why people in noir can't simply bash their loved one's brains out and chuck them in the river is beyond me. Nevertheless, Dard has a grip like a vice on the reader's attention. The details are worked out with forensic detail. Every word and every piece of action is made to count. The metaphor of the title is beautifully played. And, best of all, Dard leaves us in suspense. Downright brilliant.