Inspector Maigret, on a train from Paris to the country, impetuously follows a distraught man who jumps off at a slow spot between stations. The man shoots him and disappears into the woods. While in the hospital in Bergerac Maigret learns of a murderer who is terrorizing the town, and assumes the man from the train may be involved.

Maigret, entirely from his sick bed, interviews, interrogates, cajoles and tricks the local people and suspects who he believes are involved in the crimes and subsequent cover-up. He solves the case in a neat package and plans his return to Paris and more police work. ( )

I have many Maigret novels that I've read over the years sitting on my shelf. This doesn't prevent me from buying more, from time to time. This one was on the shelf and since I had just seen the French television Bruno Cremer episode on the same story, I thought it would be fun to compare that to the novel.

First of all, even though it was a book sitting on my regular shelf, meaning that at some point in time I had read it, I didn't remember a thing. Not a thing. Hopefully it got misplaced from the to-be-read shelf to the read shelf by mistake.

Second of all, it was interesting to see the changes they had made to what is really an anti-semitic plot to one that changed the bad guys from Jews to Vichy French Nazi collaborators. I won't hold his anti-semitism against him, since this is the first time I recall running up on it. But given that, it didn't make for an altogether wonderful read. ( )

****Spoilers*****

Two parts of this I found exceptional: the initial chapter that takes place mostly on the train and then after they jump off, and Maigret's dream as he finds himself unable to make progress on the case. Great writing. ( )

Maigret turns Nero Wolfe in this one and spends the majority of the novel bedridden after taking a bullet to the shoulder in the opening chapter. It's an interesting experiment, but the story's a little too convoluted and implausible to make for really compelling reading. The addition of his wife as sidekick also felt rather limp. ( )

Maigret turns Nero Wolfe in this one and spends the majority of the novel bedridden after taking a bullet to the shoulder in the opening chapter. It's an interesting experiment, but the story's a little too convoluted and implausible to make for really compelling reading. The addition of his wife as sidekick also felt rather limp. ( )