Maigret Goes to School by Georges Simenon

Substandard Maigret murder mystery

First published in 1954, Maigret Goes to School is the 72nd work (if you count both novels and short stories) in Georges Simenon’s series of detective fiction featuring Inspector Jules Maigret. In the recent series of Penguin reprints, it is novel number 44. Though Simenon was born in Belgium and wrote his books in the French language, he penned this novel in Lakeville, Connecticut, where he lived for five years. Maigret Goes to School was adapted for television in 1992 as part of the British TV series starring Michael Gambon as Maigret.

A visitor shows up at Maigret’s police station to solicit his help. Joseph Gastin is a schoolmaster from the small town of Saint-André-sur-Mer on the western coast of France in the region of Charente. Gastin informs Maigret that a murder has been committed in his town, and that he, Gastin, is the prime suspect. An elderly woman, a retired postal employee, was shot in the eye as she looked out the window of her home. Gastin, an outsider in the town and unliked by everyone, knows that he will be charged with the crime and possibly attacked by the townsfolk. He wants Maigret to save his bacon by finding the real killer. Maigret, eager for a Spring outing, decides a trip to the sea might be nice.

When Maigret and Gastin arrive in Saint-André-sur-Mer, the schoolmaster is arrested and put in jail. Nobody really thinks he committed the crime, but they’d rather see this stranger in jail than one of their own. No one in town really liked the victim either, and everyone seems to be happy that the cranky old lady is dead. Nevertheless, a murder was committed, and it needs a resolution, so Maigret gets to know the citizens of this seaside town.

I’ve read two dozen of Simenon’s Maigret novels. Though not always mystery masterpieces, the books in this series are consistently very good and not infrequently great. Maigret Goes to School, however, has got to be the most boring Maigret novel I’ve come across so far. I usually like it when Maigret leaves Paris and solves small-town crimes because it often allows Simenon to show the reader a slice of French life not frequently seen in popular French fiction, which is so often set in Paris. The Night at the Crossroads, Maigret Afraid, and Maigret’s Rival are all fine examples of the Maigret-in-the-country category. Here, however, Saint-André-sur-Mer is really rather dull and filled with characters who are difficult to distinguish from one another. Just about anyone could have committed the murder, but no one really seems to care who did. There’s never any real sense of urgency to the story, nor is there much of the psychological insight that Simenon usually brings to his mysteries. Maigret seems to approach the case with ambivalence and apathy, and the reader can’t help but feel the same. After seven chapters of talking with these rather nondescript characters, Maigret reveals the mode and motive of the murder, bringing up a few clues out of the blue that weren’t mentioned earlier. When at last the killer is revealed, the reader feels no real sense of accomplishment, relief, or satisfaction.

Perhaps Simenon’s intention with Maigret Goes to School was to depict a provincial town as an insular enclave inhabited by shallow and surly persons. If so, he might have accomplished that, but it doesn’t make for a good novel. Simenon supposedly wrote over 400 published novels, 75 of them starring Maigret. Despite such a prolific output, it’s been my experience that he rarely delivers a dud, but Maigret Goes to School is one case where he missed the mark.
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