To The Last Page

Following up an obscure lead left to him by a criminal about to be executed, Maigret discovers a hidden side to a group of Parisians of respectable professions, and becomes a witness to what they get up to in their leisure time. At the weekends, these respectable gentlemen - engineers, businessmen, shop owners, doctors - and their wives, all make their way to a tavern on an outlying location on the Seine known as the Guinguette à deux sous, where they indulge in dressing up, role-playing, heavy drinking, fine eating, and a little bit of fishing and canoeing. Extramarital affairs are also indulged during the partying, often with the tacit consent of all the couples involved. Such matters are not of great concern to Maigret and not why he is at the Guinguette à deux sous when he should be on holiday in the country with his wife. He's been told by the criminal to be executed, Lenoir, that there is a murderer among the group who was seen six years ago dropping a body into the canal Sai...

When a man turns up in his office, anticipating arrest for the murder of an old lady, Maigret travels to a little village in the provinces in a non-professional capacity. Shot through the eye by an air-pistol while looking out her window, the villagers aren’t exactly sorry that the old woman is dead – she’s been the terror of the village for years – but if someone has to pay for the crime, they reckon it might as well be the school teacher, since he’s considered an outsider. Simenon’s in familiar territory here – Les Fiancailles de Monsieur Hire , L’Assassin –convincingly depicting the workings of small communities, watching each other through windows, gossiping, ostracising outsiders, creating a sense of community only through mutual fear, guilt and suspicion. Coming from a small country village himself, Maigret is only too familiar with this kind of behaviour, and slips quietly back into their way of thinking to uncover the underlying motivations of the killer.