The characters are both realistic and intriguing. He leaves the reader just enough of a trail of bread crumbs to see where the path of Maigret’s investigation is leading, but not enough to discern the final destination until the very end. Some mystery novelists save up too many surprises for the big reveal at the end, causing the reader to become disoriented and disinterested. Surprising revelations are rationed over the course of the book, so the reader is always just one step behind the truth. The more Maigret delves into the case, the more baffling details reveal themselves. Simenon handles this case with expert pacing and plotting. Once they arrive in Sancerre, details begin to emerge that suggest that the mysterious M. Unable to convince her, the reluctant Maigret drags the doubtful woman off to view the corpse. The widow greets Maigret’s notification of her husband’s death with disbelief, because he was murdered on June 25th, while she has received a postcard from him postmarked on the 26th. Maigret is tasked, much to his chagrin, with travelling to Saint-Fargeau, a town about 20 miles from Paris, informing Madame Gallet of her husband’s demise, and escorting her to Sancerre to identify the body. On a stifling hot summer day, he gets a telegram informing him that a traveling salesman named Émile Gallet has been found murdered at a hotel in Sancerre, a town on the Loire River. Maigret is Detective Chief Inspector with the Police Judiciaire in Paris. I’ve read about ten of the Maigret novels so far, and this is the best one I’ve come across so far. In all Simenon wrote 75 novels and 28 short stories starring Maigret. Gallet décédé, it has also been published in English under the titles The Death of Monsieur Gallet and Maigret Stonewalled. The Late Monsieur Gallet, published in 1931, is the third volume in Belgian author Georges Simenon’s series of mystery novels featuring Inspector Jules Maigret, though the recent line of reprints from Penguin Classics has it as book number two in their series.
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