We then flash back to understand just what the detective is up to. The novel begins ‘in media res’ during a hot and humid August with five women dead and Maigret ready to spring a huge and elaborate trap. “He was a man unlike others, a man who killed without any of the reasons other people can understand, in an almost childish way, afterward tearing his victim’s clothing as though by whim.”

Yet it is clear that they do not know everything: This is none the less a novel of its time, when it was possible to track down all Parisian button sellers virtually in a day and all vagrants were seemingly known personally by the police. This doesn’t hurt the book particularly I’m glad to say, due in part to the fact that she largely resists the temptation to be too idiomatic (and indeed goes the other way by retaining the ‘madame’ and ‘monsieur’ soubriquet, as was the convention with books and movies at the time), making it seem less dated. Originally published in 1955 in France as ‘Maigret tend un piège’, the English translation by Daphne Woodward first appeared 10 years later and seems to have been the one used through all subsequent editions.

“I suppose you’re referring to the murders in the 18th arrondissement?” “Doesn’t your responsibility frighten you a bit?” I submit this review for Bev’s 2013 Vintage Mystery Challenge in the ‘World Traveler’ category the 2013 Book to Movie Challenge at the Doing Dewey blog (for links to other participants’ reviews, click here) and Patti Abbott’s Friday’s Forgotten Books meme over at her fab Pattinase blog – you should head to these great sites now. Is it possible that Maigret got the wrong man? And who is truly responsible for the crimes anyway? Pretty soon, after a failed attack, an arrest is made – but then another murder is committed. A psychopath is stalking the women of a small district in Paris and Jules Maigret of the Police Judiciaire is under pressure to find the culprit.

Maigret Sets a Trap by Georges Simenon