Inspector Maigret takes on a murder case in the small northern Dutch city of Delfzijl.
What will any seasoned reader of Simenon's roman durs encounter when reading an Inspector Maigret novel? A shorter work with a tighter focus: instead of a detailed examination of the main character's psyche, the man or woman (usually a man) having been pushed to the edge, we follow Maigret tracking down clues and probing into the minds and hearts of everyone associated with the circumstances of a crime. I mention this since A Crime in Holland is my very first Maigret.
The facts of the case: Jules Duclos, a French professor visiting this quiet Dutch coastal town to deliver a lecture, attends a social gathering following his talk at the home where he's staying. Shortly after the guests leave, he hears a gunshot, rushes to the bathroom, looks out the window and sees the man of the house, Conrad Popinga, a Naval College professor, dead on the ground outside, shot in the chest. He makes the mistake of immediately picking up the revolver. Maigret is sent to investigate.
Simenon uses so few words to convey atmosphere. This on Delfzijl: "Just a little town: ten to fifteen streets at most, paved with handsome red bricks, laid down as regularly as tiles on a kitchen floor. Low-rise houses, also built of brick, and copiously decorated with woodwork, in bright cheerful colours. It looked like a toy town. All the more so since around this toy town ran a dyke, encircling it completely.”
Likewise, Simenon's quickest of character sketches, as per these observations made by Maigret when first meeting a few women and men -
Daughter of a farmer whose a friend of the Popinga family – “Beetje Liewens was wearing black rubber boots, which gave her the look of a stable-girl. Her green silk dress was almost entirely covered up by a white overall. A rose face, too rose y perhaps. A healthy, happy smile, but one lacking any subtlety. Large china-blue eyes. Red-gold hair."
Professor Duclos - “He hadn't expected him to look so young. Duclos was about thirty-five to thirty-eight. But there was something slightly unusual about him that struck Maigret....Duclos belonged to a category of men that the inspector knew well. Men of science. Study for study's sake. Ideas for ideas. A certain austerity of manner and lifestyle, combined with a taste for international contacts.”
Dutch inspector sent from Groningen who speaks French “slowly and rather pedantically” - “A tall blonde, clean-cut young man, of remarkably affable manner, he underlined every sentence with a little nod, which seemed to indicate: 'You get my meaning? We are agreed on this?'”
Mademoiselle Any, sister-in-law of Conrad Popinga, staying at the Popinga house - “Irregular features. If not for the large mouth and uneven teeth, she wouldn't have been worse-looking than average. Flat-chested. Large feet. But above all, the forbidding self-confidence of the suffragette.”
Maigret doesn't speak Dutch, which gives the tale an element of charm, since the French inspector doesn't need to know the language to read all the people he meets and questions as if they are an open book, especially when they treat him as an intrusive outsider who just might upset their social niceties and equilibrium. The way gruff Maigret goes about solving the case, step by step, gives these nice, proper people exactly what they deserve.
I don't see A Crime in Holland listed as one of Simenon's top Maigret novels but for fans of the author, I can't imagine anybody being disappointed.
Maigret statue in Delfzijl
Current day photo of Delfzijl, not that much different than what Maigret saw back in 1931, publication date of the novel
Georges Simenon, 1903-1989
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