Maigret and the enigmatic lett

by

Paperback, 140 pages

English language

Published Dec. 30, 1975 by Penguin Books.

ISBN:
978-0-14-002023-6
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OCLC Number:
639604770

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(3 reviews)

Pietr the Lett had for years been clocked across the European frontiers by Interpol. Who was he, this international swindler with the skin of a chameleon? Was he Oswald Oppenheim, friend of multi-millionaires? Or Olaf Swann, a Norwegian merchant officer down at Fécamp? Or Fédor Yurovich, a down-and-out Russian drunk? Or could he have been the twisted corpse they found on the Pole Star express when it drew into Paris?

It cost Maigret one of his best inspectors — and a ducking in the sea — to unravel one of the most tortuous puzzles of identity he had ever handled.

19 editions

reviewed Pietr-le-Letton by Georges Simenon (Inspector Maigret, #1)

First Maigret novel

I don’t usually have an appetite for detective novels, but I was nonetheless curious to read the first novel in the Inspector Maigret series. While the plot of Pietr-le-Letton (1931) is meagre, featuring a caricatural villain from outside France, I enjoyed the atmosphere created by Georges Simenon, his play with identity and deception, as well as the streets of Paris in the background. It’s funny to realise that rue du Roi de Sicile was considered a bad area not even that long ago.

Since I previously appreciated Le train, I’ll stick to the author’s ‘romans durs’ next time.

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