The Penguin Maigret Capsule Collection – Maigret’s Holiday and Maigret’s Pickpocket – by Georges Simenon

Review by Annabel

Starting back in 2013, Penguin began reissuing the novels of Georges Simenon in new or recent translations with distinctive photographic details on the covers. All 75 Maigrets are now available in the series, plus a good number of his romans durs. Having devoured most of the Maigrets as a teenager, I’m now wending my way through the collection, enjoying revisiting them in the newer translations by many favourite translators of French today.

However, although most are novellas at sub-200 pages, if you find the thought of 75 volumes a tad excessive, you could do worse than look at Penguin’s new Maigret Capsule Collection, pictured above, which takes twelve of the new editions and gives them new matt textured card covers and high quality paper. The twelve titles picked range through the entire 75 novels, which were published between 1931 and 1973, from the 2nd, The Carter of La Providence to the 67th, Maigret in Vichy. I received copies of some of those in between which I hadn’t got to yet in my re-readings to review.

Maigret’s Holiday (No. 28, 1948)

Translated by Ros Schwartz

It is a fact universally acknowledged (sic) that as soon as the Maigrets take a break, something will happen, and he will end up working on a case.

The Maigrets are taking a holiday at Les Sables d’Olonne (up the coast from La Rochelle), where Madame Maigret gets appendicitis and is being closeted in the hospital by intimidating nursing nuns post-op. Maigret is allowed to visit but for 30 minutes daily, although he insists on ringing each morning too. Maigret has little to say to his wife, although he misses her terribly, and the elderly woman sharing the ward is annoying, although alone – Madame Maigret being of a sunny disposition tries to engage her in conversation. However, one day, he finds a note put in his pocket:

For pity’s sake, ask to see the patient in room 15.

One of the sisters must have put it there, but Maigret can’t speak to them alone. By the time he acts on it, the young woman in the room has died. He doesn’t tell Madame Maigret about the note yet, but does ask if she knows the dead woman’s name. Hélène Godreau was the sister-in-law of one of the town’s doctors, Doctor Philippe Bellamy, and when Maigret first sees him, he is in the middle of a bridge game with Inspector Mansuy of the local police.

…during the games, he began for the first time to examine Maigret covertly. It was barely noticeable. His glances were so fleeting that Maigret only just intercepted them in passing.

Mansuy is delighted to have the famous Chief Inspector from Paris visiting his town, and hopes that Maigret will help him investigate the accident which led to Hélène’s death. Of course he will, but unofficially.

The Doctor is a cool customer, but he formally welcomes Maigret into his home to discuss things. However, as they enter the house, a young girl runs out, who will later be found dead – doubling the case for Maigret and, with two deaths linked to him, putting the Doctor under the microscope.

As always, Maigret observes and waits, and walks up and down the promenade of the town, frequenting favourite corners in all the bars for a glass of white wine, as he gathers his thoughts while following his hunches. One thing I learned about Maigret from this novel was that he was in training to become a doctor – doing three years of medical school before his father died, then joining the police, a fact that Doctor Bellamy wormed out of him during one of their conversations. We’re not used to finding out this kind of personal detail about Maigret. Maigret’s Holiday is anything but of course, but this novel is a great read.

Maigret’s Pickpocket (No. 66, 1967)

Translated by Siân Reynolds

We’re two decades on now, and wisely Simenon let his master sleuth age alongside the novels. Maigret has honed his wait and see act to perfection, and is a constant face in the papers.

It’s a lovely spring morning and Maigret is taking the bus to work, standing on the open platform at the back where he can smoke, but a woman’s shopping bag keeps butting into his leg, and as he moves he feels someone brush past him and leap off the bus, running off. Maigret’s wallet has been stolen. Ever a creature of habit, he’d stuffed it in his back trouser pocket, and as he was not wearing a coat, an opportunist pickpocket had nabbed it. It had his Police Judiciare pass in it too, which costs a month’s salary in fines to replace!

Imagine his surprise then, when, the next morning he finds his wallet sent back to him complete, including the 50Fr. that had been inside. Then he receives a phonecall with an urgent request to visit the pickpocket, and, interest piqued but no promises made, off Maigret goes. He meets Francis Ricain, the young man who took the wallet, who takes him to his apartment – where there’s a body with the face half shot off. Francis explains it’s his wife Sophie, and no, he didn’t shoot her, but he panicked and finding a gun, threw it in the Seine. The couple were on their uppers, which was why Francis stole the wallet, but on finding whose it was, couldn’t keep it. Maigret declines to arrest him at this time, saying there’s no evidence (yet), which somewhat astounds Francis, he but does put him in a little hotel near their HQ, away from the press, telling him not to leave the hotel.

‘Don’t you trust me?’
‘It’s not my job to trust people. I like to wait and see. Goodnight.’

Francis is a freelance journalist, film critic and wannabe film director, but work is so hard to come by. He’s part of a group of aspiring movie-makers, all circling around a successful film producer, Monsieur Carus, and his common-law wife Nora. Carus has money to fund their aspirations, yet is willing to drop them if they don’t live up to their promise. On the night his wife was murdered, Francis had been out trying to find Carus to borrow money to pay their rent arrears.

It’s an interesting group of people, and they mainly meet in a bar run by a former movie stunt man and his actress-turned-chef wife, who cooks Maigret a wonderful chaudrée (chowder). Maigret, as always sits and watches as this group all ply their schtick.

As is often the case with one of Maigret’s investigations, whodunnit is evident right from the start, but Maigret waits and prods gently until they put themselves in the noose, while uncovering the secrets of everyone surrounding them too. Maigret’s Pickpocket is a superb example of this, but also has a joyous running gag in the background. Maigret has never bothered learning to drive, and has persuaded Madame Maigret to take lessons, so she can drive him on holiday for instance. She, however, is a rather nervous pupil! I love it. Maigret’s Pickpocket is one of the best in the series that I’ve read yet.

Annabel is co-founder of Shiny and one of its editors.

Georges Simenon, Maigret’s Holiday and Maigret’s Pickpocket (Penguin, 2025). 978-0241788226, 978-0241788172, 208 and 192pp. respectively, paperback originals.

BUY at Blackwell’s via our afilliate links: Maigret’s Holiday & Maigret’s Pickpocket.