You know, I really hadn’t planned on doing any more writing about the Maigret series by Georges Simenon. Not until I had read a decent selection from different points in the series. Definitely not after I read a second book.
But Maigret and the Headless Corpse just ended up being so much more interesting than I expected. I had accidentally gotten it out because I mixed it up with Maigret and his Dead Man. (An easy mistake I think) And, from what I can tell, it is considered a middle-of-the-road book in the series.
Which I entirely believe.
But what was so striking for me was the structure of the book.
A dismembered corpse, sans head which would make for easy identification, is found in a Paris canal. Maigret, a police detective, takes on the case, needing to figure out who the dead guy is and who killed him.
And here’s the thing. Pretty early in the book, Maigret figures those things out. However, he has to understand the motive so that he can put all the pieces together in a way that will actually land a confession and conviction.
In other words, it is not a who done it. It is who is this person that has done it and why did they do it in the first place? The book isn’t a mystery. It is a character study.
And, while there are some revelations by the end, there aren’t any sudden twists that change everything. Instead, we learn just enough to understand why the murder happened.
Maigret spends time around the neighborhood where the body parts are found and much of the book deals with everyday life. And Simenon makes the immersive, not tedious or boring. We also get to see plenty of Maigret’s own personality. One of my favorite touches is that he makes sure a suspect in custody’s cat is taken care of and is irked when it’s implied he shouldn’t have bothered.
Maigret and the Headless Corpse wasn’t on my short list of books to read, which makes my enjoyment even better. I’m not planning on an exhaustive exploration of the series but I am hoping to read at least ten Maigret books this year.
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