The Grand Banks Cafe is the 9th Maigret novel Simenon wrote in 1931. He was prolific, but more impressive is the high quality of these classic mysteries.
It was a June morning when Maigret read the letter from Jorisson - they were at school together. Madame Maigret was packing the wicker trunks for their annual trip to Alsace. For 20 years, they spent the holidays with family in the eastern French village.
"What if we went to the sea instead?"
She stared at him, not understanding. In Alsace she made jam with her family. At Fecamp there would only be other people from Paris. Objections were raised.
Once they were in the Hotel de la Plage in Fecamp, Maigret visited the Grand Banks Cafe opposite where the trawler Ocean was berthed. Jorisson asked Maigret to take an interest in his former student, the wireless operator of the Ocean. Pierre le Clinche, 20, sailed for three months cod fishing off the coast of Newfoundland.
The voyage had the evil eye, and they were a superstitious lot. A sailor waving goodbye fell on the deck and had to be removed, steam valves blew, a man got gangrene, they fished in a barren location, the cod were poorly salted and went off, the young ship's boy was swept overboard in a storm, a rowing boat was lost, and Captain Octave Fallut stopped speaking with anyone three days into the voyage - writing out his last will minutes before disembarking. Is that not enough?
Hours after docking, the Captain was found floating in the harbour. Pierre was arrested as the only man present, but everyone claims he is a fine man. Innocent but will be found guilty, as the courts do not understand the sea. The sailors of the Grand Banks Cafe, who even drunk seem haunted by painful memories, spend their pay drinking, until the boat is ready to sail again. Pierre's fiancé arrives and adamantly proclaims his innocence. With her help, Maigret sees another angle to the murder - for Fallut was strangled before hitting the water. Pierre saw a man in tan shoes on the dock. And in the captain's room, a strange photo of a buxom woman, her face removed with red ink. They say the captain went mad, but Pierre will not speak of it, or of the common young couple loudly arguing in each cafe - a buxom woman applying too much lipstick, and a man in tan shoes.
This was very atmospheric. I often say masterful, but how else to describe the balancing of a detective and his wife on holiday, a case where he is in no official capacity, the bond of seamen who will never talk, a strange murder without witnesses or suspects, and the uncovering of the truth that lies under the surface. Into this add a seductive woman, 'in the full bloom of her animal presence', the burning desire of at least three men.
The setting is a small coastal town, next to an active port where there is mainly fish and drink. You can smell the air. The calm sea, the faint murmur of water lapping the shingle, and the wooden piles of the jetties. A fishing boat, with its white light swinging at the end of its mast, was slowly moving away towards the jetties, and the sound of two men talking could be heard.
All of this within 154 pages, as exciting and modern as if it happened today.
Simenon is always recommended, and this is available as a book, eBook, and audiobook.
My other reviews for Georges Simenon:
1931 / Tradeback / 154 pages
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