An early work in Georges Simenon’s Inspector Maigret series leads the reader to consider the human condition in all its shades.

---

A prolific Georges Simenon wrote eleven Inspector Maigret novels in his first year of producing what would become a 75-book library. The fifth or sixth in the series, depending on which list one consults, takes the inspector to a coastal town where everyone, it seems, is hiding something.

The Yellow Dog (1931) by Georges Simenon begins in Concarneau where M. Mostaguen, the local wine dealer, is wounded by a gunshot when returning home drunk from the local Admiral Hotel. Maigret, who is nearby organizing a mobile squad, is called in by the mayor to solve the crime. Settling in at the Admiral, Maigret soon discovers a set of unusual characters: Jean Servières, a retired newspaper man from Paris; Ernest Michoux, a doctor who has never practiced; Emma, the mysterious and complicated waitress at the hotel; and a strange yellow dog that seems to be haunting the neighborhood. Although each of the characters has their secrets, Maigret quickly focuses on the fact that Emma is hiding something that may be a key to solving the crime. After Mostaguen is injured there is an incident with poisoned drinks at the bar; a local customs official is shot in the leg; Servières disappears, is found, and brought back; and the jumpy mayor, in his haste to get the attacks off the front page of the local—and increasingly the Parisian—newspapers, has the police arrest a giant vagrant. Maigret, who has the vagrant under surveillance during one of the attacks, realizes that the truth lies elsewhere. He finally navigates the small town dynamics so that he can uncover the true nature of the crimes. As this is an early work in the series, Simenon also fills in more of Maigret’s character, especially with a touching coda at the end of the novel.

Throughout this work, Simenon’s profound interest in people is evident. He sketches in the characters such as Emma with an economy of means but also with an eye on understanding—without judgement—”the human condition in all its shades.”

The Times of London called Simenon’s books “gem-hard soul-probes.” The Yellow Dog is another of those works spare in words but deep in understanding and truth.

More to come . . .

DJB

*It is my intention to eventually work my way through all 75 works in the series, should I live long enough. To read my other reviews of Maigret novels to date see:

• Pietr the Latvian (1930)
• The Late Monsieur Gallet (1931)
• A Man’s Head (1931)
• Maigret’s Holiday (1948)
• Maigret and the Lazy Burglar (1961)