Book Review: Maigret in Holland

This is another one of those stories where a figure in authority has asked the Police Judiciaire in Paris whether they can ‘borrow’ Maigret to investigate, in his own style, a murder. A man is shot dead by a single bullet from a revolver which is left by the bathroom window of the man’s house. This gun is picked up by a French professor who’s on a lecture tour of northern Europe. The professor is called Leclos and is very critical of Maigret and his indelicate methods of dealing with people with whom he doesn’t share a common language.

The murder took place in the coastal town of Delfzijl on the Ems Delta in the East of the Netherlands, right by the German border. This is an actual town near Groningen and not fictitious.

Maigret spends time walking around the town, getting the feel of the place and its small-town respectability, and becoming familiar with the locals and especially the people who might have committed the murder. He is helped or, more accurately, hindered by a local Groningen detective who thinks he’s found a solution to the murder and invites Maigret to a celebratory lunch.

Of course, Maigret can’t accept the solution provided and does his own version of the classic Hercule Poirot scene where all the suspects are gathered to hear his verdict. The truth is that any of them could have done the murder but Maigret pieces together the timescales so that only one person could have done it.