The Judge's House by Georges Simenon

In this 22nd Maigret mystery from Georges Simenon, the Detective Chief Inspector has been exiled to the coastal town of L'Aiguillon, where everyone is a mussel farmer, and the silent nights offer the murmur of water in motion and the lighthouse beam crosses the sky.

An old woman reports to Maigret odd news: Adine and her husband, Mr. Hulot, looked into the judge's house next door and saw a body on the floor. Three days later, it was still there. Maigret meets them late at night to witness the judge drag a sack-wrapped body out of the house, heading to dump it in the rising tide. He claims he did not know the man and did not kill him, simply found him in his utility room with his head smashed in—perhaps someone left him there already dead.

Judge Forlacroix's daughter Lise lives upstairs with a medical condition, which is why her bedroom door remains locked. When they tour the home, they find her door indeed locked, but a second door inside open to the utility room. Anyone could have entered, and it's rumored men have!

The Judge claims innocence, but once arrested, admits to a crime fifteen years ago which broke up his family. Lise has a boyfriend, Marcel Airaud, who has run away. He had arranged with the judge to marry Lise, despite already giving the hotel maid a child.

L'Aiguillon is small enough; nobody came to town the day of the murder; nobody saw any cars. He was not from around here, with his shoes from Paris and his clothes from Panama.

This mystery is loaded with story, and Maigret somehow works it out in the end. The town is filled with atmosphere, but it is the characters and the backstories that keep this one entertaining. As always, Simenon presents a complete world, and I always look forward to enjoying his mysteries next to the sea as the water rushes and swells, the beams of the lighthouse joining the sky.

1942 / Tradeback / 176 pages