Book Review : Maigret’s Rival by Georges Simenon

Maigret is unofficially ‘asked’ to investigate a case where a young man has been mangled by a train, but there are suspicions that he might have been dead prior to the train running him over.

Maigret heads out of Paris and as he travels to the place where the death happened, he sees a former colleague called Justin Cavre – affectionately known as the Old Cadaver – who is going to the same place as Maigret at the request of another person involved in the situation there. Cavre is now a private detective who left the police force when passed over for promotion. This is Maigret’s ‘rival’ of the title.

As anyone who has read a Maigret novel knows, he has his own methods, methods that do confuse the locals somewhat, but Maigret does find out what happened although whether anyone will be prosecuted is open to question. The situation Maigret finds involves the more important people of the area and how they relate to each other and who they are related to by marriage. The fears, tensions, and alliances of the place are exposed by Maigret and once he leaves on the train, along with his ‘rival’, nothing will ever be the same in the place he left behind.