Felicie by Georges Simenon

From 1944, Félicie is the 25th Chief Inspector Maigret mystery from Georges Simenon. The most relaxed of the series so far, this is all about place and character, namely the colorful young Félicie, an ebullient girl some call a 'Cockatoo.'

With her striking clothes and giddy crimson bonnet, she fascinates and irritates Maigret as he looks into the murder of 'Pegleg' Lapie. A nautical supplier, he once lost a leg while on a ship going around Cape Horn. Retired to Jeanneville, a newly constructed village outside Paris consisting of uninhabited homes and a small sundries shop, Felicie was his housekeeper. His only visitor was his nephew, leaving him time to tend his vegetables. Why was he found shot to death in his bedroom? With no sign that Felicie was the killer, Maigret will have to cast a wide net.

After the funeral, the family discovers everything was left to Felicie, about which she is not talking. To Maigret, she intimates they were lovers, but anyone within a mile knew they argued at each other's throats. She is not speaking a word to Maigret. He concentrates on tracking the nephew Petillon, a musician in Paris. Perhaps when he stayed with his uncle, she fell a little in love with the young man? Felicie is also followed, all her movements known. This pert girl in outlandish fashions may be right that someone is watching the house, but the real mystery switches to the nephew in Place Pigalle, the nightlife area of Paris where the underworld goes about its business, though with the growing police presence, they begin to think something serious is going on.

This is a slow and quiet mystery a reader will not solve as Simenon holds his cards close. Also known as Maigret and the Toy Village, the barren homes of Jeanneville are another character in the story. Félicie mostly annoys Maigret, yet he settles into solving the shooting of Pegleg, as always, like a man getting into a pair of slippers.

Entertaining, but lacking excitement.

1944 / Tradeback / 154 pages