In the second Maigret mystery, the circumstances of Monsieur Gallet’s death all seem fake: the name he was traveling under, his presumed profession, and, more worryingly, his family’s grief. Their haughtiness seems to hide ambiguous feelings about the hapless man. Soon Maigret discovers the appalling truth and the real crime hidden beneath the surface of their lies.
Review
This was my fifth Maigret novel that I have read this year and I must admit this one did make me laugh. The best word to describe Maigret in this novel is ‘grumpy’.
It is the holiday season in Paris and this means that Maigret is left in charge with only a skeleton staff to keep law and order and when a royal visit takes away all the police officers but himself he is left to solve a murder without any of his usual staff to do the leg work for him in the scorching summer heat. It also means he has to stay in a second class hotel which really upsets him!
Maigret must find who murdered Monsieur Gallet but everything about the murder seems very wrong to Maigret and as he investigates he realises more and more that the facts don’t fit the crime. In his investigations Maigret meets Madame Gallet the wife of the deceased and dislikes her immensely, she appears very aloof, proud and cold to Maigret. In fact I have noticed in the Maigret novels that it is very rare to find a woman other than Mrs Maigret who Maigret actually thinks highly of. Although I did feel sorry for Mrs Maigret in this book because during all of his investigations Maigret never rang to tell his wife where he was even though he was staying in a different town and not coming home. Mrs Maigret must have the patience of a saint is all that I can say.
I loved how this story unfolded and due to several very well placed red herrings I never had a clue till the end of who was the murderer or why. Maigret follows the clues and builds the picture of what happened and he comes across as the most eccentric character at times, from standing on random walls to climbing through windows he really made me laugh. I give this book 4 out of 5 Dragons.
(All purchases made using one of the above affiliate links gives a small percentage of money to myself with no extra cost to yourself. All proceeds go towards the upkeep of this blog. Thank you ever so much, your support is gratefully received.)
About the author
Georges Simenon (1903-1989) was a Belgian writer who published nearly 500 novels and many short stories. Simenon is best known as the creator of the Maigret stories.
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I hope you all have some fantastic plans for the weekend.
My chosen poem today is by a new poet for me, Amy Levy. Amy Levy (10 November 1861 – 10 September 1889) was a British essayist, poet, and novelist best remembered for her literary gifts. She was also the first Jewish woman at Cambridge University.
A London Plane-Tree
Green is the plane-tree in the square,
The other trees are brown;
They droop and pine for country air;
The plane-tree loves the town.
Here, from my garret-pane, I mark
The plane-tree bud and blow,
Shed her recuperative bark,
And spread her shade below.
Among her branches, in and out,
The city breezes play;
The dun fog wraps her round about;
Above, the smoke curls grey.
Others the country take for choice,
And hold the town in scorn;
But she has listened to the voice
On city breezes borne.
Amy Levy
Happy Reading
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I haven’t done a This and That Thursday in ages so I thought it was time for an update that doesn’t involve books.
I have had my first vaccine now and have gradually started going out and visiting places which has been a nice change.
Studying
I have now begun work on my dissertation and I am thoroughly enjoying it. It is so nice to be studying a topic that you have chosen for yourself.
Piano
I am averaging an hour a day of piano practice and thoroughly enjoying it. It is so good to be practicing and having a proper structure to my practice again.
Adventures
We went for a lovely day out to Croome which is a National Trust property. I hadn’t been for years so couldn’t remember much about it. It was beautiful day and it was wonderful to go for a nice walk around the grounds and go around the house followed by a nice lunch in the cafe.
We also went for a lovely meal this evening for my mom’s birthday. It was so good to have some normality and have a nice relaxing evening.
Solar Eclipse
This morning we got the telescope out to see the solar eclipse, with a filter of course. It was rather cloudy but we managed to see it which was wonderful to see. I managed to get a rather dodgy picture with my phone through the telescope, it isn’t great but it was really tricky to get the phone lined up with the telescope.
So there are a few of my adventures recently. Work and chores continue as normal but I must admit I have been having lots of fun with the new strimmer. Hopefully I will manage to go to an actual bookshop soon as well.
Happy Reading
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The rules are answer the questions below and share a link to your blog in the comments section of Sam’s blog.
What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you will read next?
Happy Wednesday!
I hope everyone is having a good week so far. I have been thoroughly getting into my research for my dissertation and I have finally started to get a plan worked out. I have also been trying to control our overgrown garden with varied results.
What I am Currently Reading
I started this yesterday and I am already nearly finished it. I do love the Maigret books. We have been watching the Maigret series with Rowan Atkinson playing Maigret this week, I just wish there were more episodes than four.
What I Have Recently Finished Reading
This is my favourite book of 2021 so far! Click the photo for the review.
What I Think I will Read Next
As usual no clue what I will read next, it all depends on my mood.
Please drop me a link with your WWW Wednesday and I will head over for a visit.
Happy Reading.
If you enjoy reading my blog and would like to make a donation I would be very grateful. Thank you
Even Corayne an-Amarat can feel it, tucked away in her small town at the edge of the sea.
She soon discovers the truth: She is the last of an ancient lineage—and the last hope to save the world from destruction. But she won’t be alone. Even as darkness falls, she is joined by a band of unlikely companions:
A squire, forced to choose between home and honour.
An immortal, avenging a broken promise.
An assassin, exiled and bloodthirsty.
An ancient sorceress, whose riddles hide an eerie foresight.
A forger with a secret past.
A bounty hunter with a score to settle.
Together they stand against a vicious opponent, invincible and determined to burn all kingdoms to ash, and an army unlike anything the realm has ever witnessed.
Review
Wow! This is definitely my favourite book so far of 2021. I’ve never read a book by Aveyard before. I will definitely be reading her other books and future books now. I am so pleased that Waterstones sent me an email about this book and I preordered it when I saw it. Honestly, I struggled to put this down and it was only because of work and sleep that I did take breaks. This book reminded me so much of the work of Tolkien and you can see how the Lord of the Rings has influenced this book but it is not too similar.
This book contains some fantastic characters and the relationship between these characters is brilliant. The relationship between Dom who is the immortal and Sorasa the assassin is rather amusing and there is definitely some chemistry there even though they would both fiercely deny it. Dom is a Prince of Iona who is hundreds of years old with super strength and speed. He is also my favourite character as he just reminds me of a grumpy bear at times. Sorasa has a past but we don’t learn the full extent of it but what we do know is that she is street smart, an excellent killer and is always prepared.
Andry the squire has seen some horrors and shares these horrors with Dom. He is loyal and will do anything to protect Corayne and his mother. I also love his love of making tea. Andry has the belief that tea can make anything better and I fully agree. Charlie the forger we don’t know a lot about and he doesn’t feature hugely in this book but it is obvious he will in the next. The same applies to the bounty hunter Sigil. Sigil is a giant of a woman almost as big as Dom and she is an excellent warrior and rather an imposing character. Valtik the ancient sorceress is hilarious and I just loved her character. Valtik speaks in rhyme and riddles and regularly just disappears and reappears for no reason.
Finally we have Corayne, a seventeen year old girl whose has the fate of the Ward on her shoulders. Although she has never left the seaport where she grew up before her quest she knows most languages and is wise beyond her years.
I loved Aveyard’s writing style and I love the Ward that she has created with all its different realms. Each chapter is told from a different character’s point of view which means you get the story from lots of different angles and this really adds to your understanding of the characters, their pasts and what they think of the quest. I definitely give this book 5 out of 5 Dragons.
(All purchases made using one of the above affiliate links gives a small percentage of money to myself with no extra cost to yourself. All proceeds go towards the upkeep of this blog. Thank you ever so much, your support is gratefully received.)
About the author
Victoria Aveyard (1990) is an American writer of young adult and fantasy fiction and screenplays. She is best known for her fantasy novel Red Queen.
If you enjoy reading my blog and would like to make a donation I would be very grateful. Thank you
I hope everyone has had a good start to the week today. I have managed to get loads of studying done and some gardening so I am very pleased.
My latest book has arrived from The Willoughby Book Club and it is the first hardback book I have received from them which was even more exciting as I love a hardback book.
So here this the book.
All Andrew wants is to be normal. That’s why his coworkers believe he has the perfect wife and two children waiting at home for him after a long day. But the truth is, his life isn’t exactly as people think . . . and his little white lie is about to catch up with him. Because in all of Andrew’s efforts to fit in, he’s forgotten one important thing: how to really live. And maybe, it’s finally time for him to start.
Please drop me a comment if you have read the book.
If you would like to join The Willoughby Book Club here is the link for 10% off your your subscription. Link.
Happy Reading
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I hope everyone has had a good weekend so far. I have got my blogging mojo back so this week has gone a lot better. I have really enjoyed getting back into blogging and reading other blogs.
It is time for an update on my challenge. I must admit this month I have been getting quite excited about how high the pile has been growing, I almost thought it was at half way. However, when I took the picture I soon realised my mistake. My darling husband has worked out a way of counting the digital books I read. Amazon lists the dimensions of physical books, so I can use the dimensions off Amazon to work out the height of the stack with the digital books as well. I will work this out and include them in next month’s total.
I read 4 physical books in May and thankfully some of them were quite thick books.
So here is the new pile.
The new pile is exactly 24 inches high. Just 43 inches to go!
Here are the pictures from January, February, March and April.
Happy Reading!
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