Maigret At Picratt's by Georges Simenon

Monday in Montmartre, 4:30 a.m.

Picratt's red neon sign went out, and the small band and the dancers left. Arlette went to the corner bar for a coffee with a shot, then tentatively to the station to make a report. Between dances, she overheard two men planning a crime. "I've decided to end it tonight." He said he was going to kill the Countess. Arlette had been drinking steadily, and the police did not believe her.

Later that morning, she is found strangled to death in her apartment. Her fake ID said she was 24, though she was much younger. Inspectors Lognon and Lapointe are on the case, but as usual, Maigret takes it out of their hands.

Picratt's is a small club catering to the less discerning late-night crowd, already drunk when they arrive. The couple who run it take the news in stride, though Arlette was their star performer. After a slow striptease, she would drop her dress to the floor, and for a quarter of a second, stand completely naked before a blackout. Between dances, the girls would sit with the customers and order champagne (not all the bottles quite full), and at the right moment, the owner's wife would wander over with chocolates and roses, you understand?

The next day, a woman is found murdered. The Countess von Farnheim was once an elegant lady married to a wealthy man with an estate in Nice, but died as an emaciated junkie in a squalid flat. Past her prime but trailing a glittering past, everyone took advantage of her. To discover the connection between these cases, Maigret initiates a manhunt, releasing a strung-out fairy into the streets of Paris as bait to find who is at the center of this mystery.

This is the thirty-sixth Maigret mystery. Surprisingly, each novel has a different tone, this one more gritty with a violent end. With each installment, I find myself quickly engaged, and always satisfied. This has also been published as Maigret and the Strangled Stripper, and Maigret in Montmartre. You can't go wrong with Georges Simenon.

1951 / Tradeback / 188 pages