The Night at the Crossroads (Inspector Maigret)

A dealer in stolen jewels is found dead in a car parked in a residential garage - a total surprise to the people who live there. Oddly, the car belongs to a neighbor across the way. Their cars have been switched. Maigret arrives to inspect the scene of the crime: an isolated crossroads with just three buildings. There's the home of the local insurance agent, the auto repair shop and a sinister old farmhouse with aristocratic tenants from Denmark. The corpse was found in the farmhouse garage. Rarely has Maigret encountered an odder bunch of people. The elegant Dane wears a monocle to cover his grotesque glass eye, and his "sister" is suspiciously sultry. The insurance agent is an insufferable bore who expects the police to buy him a new car. The garage proprietor is an excessively jovial ex-boxer. Bullets fly as the plot unfolds. This is one of those rare times when Maigret shows himself to be a man of action, not just reflection, able to break up fights and clobber criminals as needed. It may not be the best Maigret, but it's charming and fun.

One of the things that makes these books so interesting after all these years is that they don't depend on any 'slight of hand' tricks to make the mysteries. Each story evolves from a situational point of view and then is followed (sometimes doggedly) by the Inspector and his cohort to the logical ending. What does make them especially intriguing is the background discussions of the people and places involved in the story. It's great insight into France in between the World Wars. This story is based on a small crossroads (carrefour) on the outskirts of Paris. The area is just being discovered because it is finally reachable by 'motorcar'. The changing sociology caused by the the use of long-haul trucking to bring produce and food into Paris is marvelously described in detail by Simenon. The pride in the owning of an 'motorcar', that sets one apart as both modern and mobile is also intriguing. A fine story.