The 31st in the Maigret series, this story finds our intrepid Chief Inspector traveling to Porquerolles, a tiny island a 30 minute ferry ride of the southern coast of France.  He’s called there when a man who had been drunkenly bragging about his friendship with Maigret was murdered the next day.  With the help of the police files, Maigret recalls Marcellin, a small time crook, who Maigret had once jailed and then helped his girlfriend get into a sanitorium to cure her TB.

Maigret travels to the island in part to satisfy his curiosity and in part to get out of Paris where he has been being shadowed by Inspector Pyke of Scotland Yard. Pyke was following Maigret in an attempt by the Brits to learn how this famous French detective solves crimes.  Maigret does his usual in Porquerolles—hanging around the piers and cafes, talking to few, soaking up the atmosphere and watching, watching, watching.  He ultimately solves the murder carried out by a young hippie artist and a gigolo who conspire to sell fake paintings to the gigolo’s aging, English mistress.  Marcellin had figured out their scheme, wanted in, and was murdered for his trouble.

This is not one of Simenon’s best but it was a good example of the Chief Inspector’s methods. It was especially fun reading it in the 1956 Bantam Mystery series edition I had on my shelf.  Small, tiny print, cheap paper, and selling for 35 cents, it was a wonderful throw back.