Maigret and the Old Lady | 
pickMaigret gets a busman's holiday to Normandy, and we learn a little about his humble origins in the process, which perhaps explains his affinity with the down-at-heel and the hard-done-by.
That said, the rather well-to-do old lady of the title, who asks Maigret to investigate the murder of her maid, charms him with her eccentricities. Simenon slowly unpeels the psychology of his characters, and Maigret's attitude towards them turns accordingly.
"What I'd like more than anything is to sit down at a terrace and drink a glass of cold beer."
Mission accomplished! ??
My next Maigret jumps 18 years in publication, from 1932 to 1950, and skips about 15 books in the series. I don't think there's any interlinking from one book to another, so it shouldn't be an issue, but it will be interesting to see how Simenon and Maigret have weathered WWII. This one is set at the Normandy seaside, so there's certainly scope for the war to be a presence, though perhaps it will have been to soon for Simenon's original audience?
