The Dancer at the Gai-Moulin

The tenth Maigret novel to be published, and it's already the Commissaire's second visit to Simenon's home-town of Liège. And his pretext for operating over the border in Belgium more than fifty years before the Schengen Agreement is even flimsier than it was last time. And some of his actions once he's there are distinctly odd. But it's an agreeably atmospheric little story, featuring a couple of would-be juvenile delinquents, a night-club dancer, an exotic corpse in a wicker basket, and a bunch of Belgian detectives who seem to be more interested in an opportunity to order briar pipes at cost-price than they are in the murder case they are supposed to be working on. Simenon takes the chance to dig a bit further into his favourite show more theme, the flimsiness of the boundaries between crime and respectability, and he manages to keep the reader interested despite the silliness of the plot. So why not? show less

Although 18-year-old René Delfosse comes from a wealthy family and 16-year-old Jean Chabot has a nice office job and lives at home, the feckless pair live beyond their means as they carouse night after night at the Gai-Moulin nightclub. The teenagers have taken to raiding tills and embezzling from the petty cash fund to keep themselves in drink and dancing. Set in Liège, Belgium, author Georges Simenon’s hometown, The Dancer at the Gai-Moulin begins with Delfosse and Chabot’s amateurish attempt to hide out at the Gai-Moulin after closing in an effort to steal from the cash register; however, what the boys find aren’t Belgian francs but a dead customer!

But the next day, the corpse is found not at the Gai-Moulin, but in a wheeled show more laundry cart dropped off at the botanical gardens. How did that dead Ephraim Graphapoulos (for that’s his name) end up there? Who in Liège would want to kill the playboy son of a wealthy Athens banker? And why was Graphapoulos, who originally bought a ticket for a flight to London, in Liège at all?

Despite its title, Adèle Bousquet, the beautiful woman whose job it is to dance with the male patrons at the Gai-Moulin and flirtatiously entice them to spend big on drinks, does not play a big role in The Dancer at the Gai-Moulin. In addition, Chief Inspector Maigret does not announce his presence until halfway into the book, and the book suffers for it (as occurs in Dame Agatha Christie’s books that delay the appearance of Hercule Poirot). Still, the roller-coaster ride that follows makes it all worth it for the reader, and, as always with Simenon, the novel explores the vagaries of human nature as well as any psychology text. A tangled case, indeed, The Dancer at the Gai-Moulin has plenty of surprises and an extremely satisfying ending. One of my favorite Maigret novels — which is high praise, indeed! show less

Simenon returns Maigret to his the author's hometown for a second time in the series, this time for the whole novel!

***Spoiler***

I thought the idea that Maigret isn't identified until more than halfway through the novel (even though anyone who has read any Maigret knew who he was much earlier) was interesting. However, The idea that Maigret MOVED THE BODY after he discovered it just to potentially confuse the murderer? Seems awfully far-fetched to me, even for 1931. Yet, the scene when they all go to the club and wait to see who shows up, etc, is paced so well, real edge of your seat writing.

MAIGRET AT THE GAI-MOULIN (Dancer at the Gai-Moulin) (Maigret #10, 1940) by Georges Simenon, depicts two teens falling into trouble at the seedy nightclub Gai-Moulin. They plan to rob the till after closing time but that goes out the window when they stumble across a dead body in the club. But the next day the body is found stuffed in a lidded wicker basket at the zoo. The dead man was a rich playboy, there is no police search at the club, and the boys are shocked.
This is a classic mystery with almost no leads for the local police to follow, no suspects, not even a crime scene. And there is a large, mysterious stranger who might be the killer, but no one can find him.
In a twist on most detective stories, Maigret doesn't appear until show more well into the second third of the book. We know he is going to solve the case, but being in jail himself makes that more difficult than usual.
Simenon has created an enduring character and threaded him into a massive series of puzzles, any one of which is a worth while read, entertaining as all heck, and puzzling to the end. This is not the best but is still a great throwback read. show less

Mostly a good story with more twists and turns than usual, so many, in fact, that it seems that Simenon got tied up in knots when he finally polished it off.

This is the first of the Maigret books I have read. I like the style - kind of halfway between an [[Agatha Christie]] sleuth-style and something lke an early [[Dashiel Hammet]] 'all fell on top of me' noiry detective novel. The prose is good in the translation, which makes me want to try it in the French - something that hasn't happened since I first read Dumas.

The plotting is solid, given the above juxtaposition of noir/sleuth stylings - enough setting and ancillary characters to sink your teeth into, along with a hard-boiled detective (albeit a French policeman undercover in Belgium) to bash his way through things in the end.

Nice.

This is the only Maigret detective mystery that takes place solely in Belgium. The Belgian author Simenon writes a compact, taut mystery that centers around the friendship of two older teens. One is from a firmly middle-class family, and becomes hooked on the 'good life' he enjoys with his friend whose father is rich. The rich friend has become use to many more 'baser' pleasures. In the process of trying to maintain their lifestyle, the friends get caught up in a killing. The Belgian inspector in Liege plays a nice foil to Maigret. Unfortunately, to resolve the murder a few unexpected assumptions or ideas need to be introduced that seem a stretch. The primary female character is well developed and believable and done so with show more surprisingly little effort on Simenon's part. show less