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MAIGRET BIDES HIS TIME by Georges Simenon

MAIGRET BIDES HIS TIME

By

Pub Date: April 19th, 1985
ISBN: 1572702419
Publisher: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich

A taut and tidy case for Maigret, first published in 1965. Manuel Palmari, one of the detective's older criminal acquaintances (he's long been suspected of directing a series of jewel thefts from his wheelchair), has been murdered. But Maigret doesn't have enough evidence to arrest Palmari's young mistress Aline for the crime--so he plays a kind of waiting-game with her while he uncovers her ownership of much property that once belonged to Palmari. Meanwhile, he also discovers that Aline has a married lover, Fernand Barillard, who occupies an adjacent apartment. Then that connection leads to the poignant link between Barillard's wife and elderly Jef Claes, a deaf-and-dumb man who lives in an attic room in the same building. And Maigret continues to pressure all the suspects while he puts these pieces together, ending with a watertight case. . . but not in time to prevent another murder. Fast, neat, absorbing.