Xavier Marton is convinced his wife, Gisèle, is trying to poison him. Gisèle knows of his suspicions and considers them to have roots in mental health issues. Who’s telling the truth? And why did Xavier and Gisèle come to Maigret separately, when no crime has happened yet? All Maigret can do is watch and gather information against the day that somebody dies. Who will that be, and when, and how?

If you like your mysteries with the murders in the first chapter, you’ll probably be disappointed with this one, because it takes well over 100 pages for the actual death to occur. This is a book about the pre-crime much more than the crime itself. It’s also about Maigret examining his own relationship with his wife, as well as some nice moments with him and his officers where he puts them on the case and looks out for them at the same time. It took me a while to finish this book, but that was definitely more on me than on the book. A Maigret is a quick read, normally, and if you’re learning French as an adult, they’re very good for practice. ( )

Some mystery novels are just different from all the others, and one of these is Georges Simenon's “Maigret’s Doubts,” published in 1958 and still a page-turner.

As the relatively brief novel begins, it may be the reader who has the doubts. Maigret, the Paris police inspector, is so distracted when a man named Xavier Marton enters his office that he only half pays attention. He doesn't even remember the man's name after he leaves his office while Maigret is called away. Still he remembers enough to be troubled later. Marton believes his wife plans to poison him.

But then Marton's wife enters his office with another version of the story. What neither spouse tells him, but which Maigret discovers through a little investigation, is that both parties are involved in affairs, she with her boss and he with his wife's sister, who is living with them. On a second visit, Marton tells him that if his wife does poison him, he plans to kill her with his gun before he dies.

The case troubles Maigret greatly because he fears something terrible is about to happen, but to whom? How can he make an arrest before there is a crime? His doubts are about what he can do to stop it. The murder, when it finally does happen, turns out to be a bit more complicated than one might expect.

Early in the novel Simenon refers to his detective's "professional apathy," which seems an apt descriptive phrase for the man, who asks few questions, displays few emotions and often seems not to care about his cases or much of anything else. Distracted by his own marital concerns in that first chapter, he really didn't care. But later he does, and his mind is always at work even when his behavior suggests otherwise. ( )

Really enjoyable Maigret novel. He is approached before the crime is committed which tests his powers of investigation. A model train-set salesman is a strange central figure. Suspects and victim live in a cauldron of unhappiness, despair and, in one case, indifference. The ending is and isn't predictable. ( )

Another well crafted story from Georges Simenon. It opens with Maigret and his colleagues in a state of torpor in the first week of the New year. No-one seems to have any energy or drive, and even the criminals seem to be suffering from post-Christmas inertia. In the midst of this Maigret is visited by Xavier Marton, head salesman from one of Paris's leading toy stores. It takes M. Marton (an expert (perhaps even a connoisseur) of electric trains) a long time to tell his story, but it eventually transpires turns out that he is convinced that his wife is trying to kill him. He even produces a wrap of paper containing a hazardous chemical preparation that he has found hidden in his house. However, at this point Maigret is summoned away to speak to the Chief of Police on another matter, and when he returns to his office M. Marton has gone.

The plot thinkens when maigret is visited shortly afterwards by Mme Marton, Xavier's wife, who tells a similar story to her husband. Maigret is left to wonder which, if either, is telling the truth.

As always, the plot is well thought through, and the story is beautifully written (or, translated by a writer with a flair for gripping prose. There is relatively little exciting action,but the tension develops inexorably. More than fifty years on from its original publication this book has scarcely dated at all. ( )

This book inverts the tradition of the detective novel: it is the crime, rather than the solution, which becomes the climax of the novel. There are only 3 suspects: a husband, a wife and a sister-in-law, but we remain in the dark throughout the novel as to which will be the victim and who will commit the crime. Or even as to whether there will be a crime, because not everyone who contemplates murdering their partner acts. This is a psychological crime novel; the interest is in motivation, interpreting actions, mistaken beliefs. Is the crime due to mental illness or human nature? Continued ( )