Detective Book Club

Three short stories, by three authors.
None of Maigret's Business, by Georges Simenon: Probably my favorite Maigret story yet. Maigret and his wife take what we would now call a "staycation." A spectacular murder occurs and he resolves to follow it like any other citizen, through the newspaper reports, rather than go back to work. The humor in his temptations to keep his resolve is what makes this a fun story. Very quiet humor, sly, rather than knee-slapping.

The Man in Gray by Frances Crane. Clunky. I only skimmed to finish this because it took place in the California wine country and San Francisco before California wine was recognized as something special. The mystery itself wasn't bad, but who could tell with the writing style? Over-blown character reactions, awkward dialog. Clunky.

Death Paints a Portrait by William Herber. A well-written mystery, in the sense that it was a pleasure to read, especially after the middle story of this book. The language was a treat. The feeling of the Noir mystery good. Some weird character behavior, but it played into the story.… (more)

I got this for the first two stories. In the Maigret feels bad because he did not take the spinster's problem seriously before she died; in Death of a Hawker the Dutch police(already busy with controlling a protest) investigate the death of a man with his head bashed in; he turns out to be a hawker who sold things in a street market --he sold cloth, strung, beads and other craft supplies to people who makes crafts The Doomsday Carrier, which I deliberately have not read, is about a chimpanzee who escapes from a lab after being infected with a plague that will start to spread in 21 days.unless he is caught.… (more)

I have this for the first story, in which inspector Napoleon Bonaparte is sent to infiltrate a valley of smugglers. I ignored Whatever Happened to Baby Jane as I gathered from references to the movie that I wouldn't like it.
The third story is a Fred Fellows story, but unlike most which are regular mysteries solved by Fellows, this begins as an inside account of a payroll robbery set up by an uneasy alliance between some professional criminals and employees of the factory which is to be robbed.… (more)