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Nicholas Le Prevost stars as the French detective in this BBC Radio full-cast dramatisation.In 'The Bar on the Seine' a condemned man tells Maigret about a riverside drinking hole where a murderer lurks undetected. Pursuing the clue, Maigret witnesses a death and discovers a much older crime...
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Simenon seems to be trying to win back a bit of market share from Agatha Christie with this one: the central characters are a flashy, art-deco set of young professionals - one of them an English expat - who have made a run-down riverside café just outside Paris the centre of their weekends of bridge, adultery and boating. Maigret meets them whilst following up a lead in a "cold case" investigation (just to prove that there's nothing new under the sun in the crime-fiction business!). He thus happens to be on the spot when there's another violent death, which is lucky for him, as it gives him the perfect excuse to postpone joining Mme Maigret and her sister for the family summer holiday in Alsace. Rather unusually, he seeks the help of show more some forensic scientists during this investigation, but don't worry - as usual, the final identification of the guilty party comes from the Commissaire's psychological intuition. So everything is as it should be, but this one still doesn't really have anything to make it stand out from the crowd of Simenon novels... show less
A pensive condemned man clues Chief Inspector Jules Maigret in to a six-year-old unsolved murder, pointing out the connection to a drinking establishment on a Parisian canal, the Two-Penny Bar. Thus begins one of Maigret’s most convoluted cases — and one of my favorites.
Maigret stumbles on a gay group of revelers who go down to a spot on the River Seine near the village of Morsang-sur-Seine. With his wife away in her native Alsace, Maigret is at a loose end, so he stays and parties with the group and befriends the sardonic, hard-drinking Englishman James. That’s why Maigret is present when one member of the group, Feinstein, is killed and to witness the shameless flirtations of Feinstein’s wife, Mado. The suspected killer is show more Mado’s adulterous lover, Basso.
Sounds complicated? You won’t think so when reading author Georges Simenon’s expert take on these events. Like so many Maigret novels, The Two-Penny Bar (also published as Guinguette by the Seine, Maigret to the Rescue, The Spot by the Seine, The Bar on the Seine, and Maigret and the Tavern by the Seine) proves to be bittersweet and eminently satisfactory. As with The Grand Banks Café, which I just finished, a femme fatale lies at the heart of all the troubles, but this rendition still felt fresh.
If you have a chance to enjoy the Audible version of The Two Penny Bar, with Gareth Armstrong once again narrating, don’t miss the chance! show less
Maigret stumbles on a gay group of revelers who go down to a spot on the River Seine near the village of Morsang-sur-Seine. With his wife away in her native Alsace, Maigret is at a loose end, so he stays and parties with the group and befriends the sardonic, hard-drinking Englishman James. That’s why Maigret is present when one member of the group, Feinstein, is killed and to witness the shameless flirtations of Feinstein’s wife, Mado. The suspected killer is show more Mado’s adulterous lover, Basso.
Sounds complicated? You won’t think so when reading author Georges Simenon’s expert take on these events. Like so many Maigret novels, The Two-Penny Bar (also published as Guinguette by the Seine, Maigret to the Rescue, The Spot by the Seine, The Bar on the Seine, and Maigret and the Tavern by the Seine) proves to be bittersweet and eminently satisfactory. As with The Grand Banks Café, which I just finished, a femme fatale lies at the heart of all the troubles, but this rendition still felt fresh.
If you have a chance to enjoy the Audible version of The Two Penny Bar, with Gareth Armstrong once again narrating, don’t miss the chance! show less
I can't discuss what makes this adventure of Inspector Maigret different from the others without dropping a spoiler. Suffice to say that it is another sad story of middle class life told with empathy, not contempt.
The building’s officious concierge realizes that Monsieur Couchet is dead when she notices him behind his lighted frosted window not having moved for a long time. The image of Courbet as a shadow puppet lingers with Chief Inspector Jules Maigret for the length of the novel, and he begins to think of the investigation as shadow puppets in a drama, and readers will, too.
Couchet has built a pharmaceutical empire, Doctor Rivière's Serums, and leaves a fortune. So who would want the affable, generous Couchet dead? His discontented, carping ex-wife, who left him just before he built his fortune? Her new husband, a dapper civil servant from the registry? The well-born second Madame Couchet? Couchet’s considerate mistress? Or Couchet’s show more drug-addled son from his first marriage? And are the 360,000 missing francs from the safe the motive for the crime? Or an additional and unrelated one?
Readers will find The Shadow Puppet another wonderful novel in this excellent series. And, as ever, the best way to enjoy Chief Inspector Maigret is with the Audible version, narrated by Gareth Armstrong. show less
Couchet has built a pharmaceutical empire, Doctor Rivière's Serums, and leaves a fortune. So who would want the affable, generous Couchet dead? His discontented, carping ex-wife, who left him just before he built his fortune? Her new husband, a dapper civil servant from the registry? The well-born second Madame Couchet? Couchet’s considerate mistress? Or Couchet’s show more drug-addled son from his first marriage? And are the 360,000 missing francs from the safe the motive for the crime? Or an additional and unrelated one?
Readers will find The Shadow Puppet another wonderful novel in this excellent series. And, as ever, the best way to enjoy Chief Inspector Maigret is with the Audible version, narrated by Gareth Armstrong. show less
Quite depressing. The murder mystery, the chase of Maigret, his longing for peace of mind, escape to join his wife for a well needed break are like dark gray clouds in sharp contrast with the sunny, carefree setting of summer week-end escapes to the outskirts of Paris.
This is definitely one of the dark ones. Still very well plotted, the settings are incredibly vivid and the moods of Maigret are shown and hit you right where it hurts.
This is definitely one of the dark ones. Still very well plotted, the settings are incredibly vivid and the moods of Maigret are shown and hit you right where it hurts.
Another excellent entry. I love the leisurely pace of this one, it's seems to mirror the character James in his overall lack of concern about where he is or what he is doing most of the time.
Just read it again. No, it's not the same story as the tv episode. Relax, you're not senile yet.
I've read many of the Inspector Maigret novels. I keep thinking I've read most of what's been translated into English, but each time I look on Amazon, I find one or two that are new to me (usually used copies). I have the Michael Gambon tv series and have watched it many times so recently I bought and watched four volumes (40 eipsodes!) of the French Maigret series with Bruno Cremer. (They're wonderful.)
I thought it would be fun to see how the Cremer film version I had recently watched compared with the book (I usually like to read first and then watch, but sometimes it can't be helped). The beginning started out different, but they often show more change things in the films for various reasons. As the book progressed, it seemed that nothing was familiar except for the condemned man at the beginning and the setting of a guinguette on the river. I kept thinking something would happen and I'd remember the original plot and ending, but it never did happen. Hopefully the episode I watched was of another story and I haven't gone senile. I'll have to find it and watch again...
In spite of my confusion, this was a good Maigret. Well, they're all good, but some are better than others, and perhaps the earlier ones are better than the later ones. I believe this one was first published in 1941, making it fairly early. It has the variety of French characters I enjoy encountering in the Maigret stories. show less
I've read many of the Inspector Maigret novels. I keep thinking I've read most of what's been translated into English, but each time I look on Amazon, I find one or two that are new to me (usually used copies). I have the Michael Gambon tv series and have watched it many times so recently I bought and watched four volumes (40 eipsodes!) of the French Maigret series with Bruno Cremer. (They're wonderful.)
I thought it would be fun to see how the Cremer film version I had recently watched compared with the book (I usually like to read first and then watch, but sometimes it can't be helped). The beginning started out different, but they often show more change things in the films for various reasons. As the book progressed, it seemed that nothing was familiar except for the condemned man at the beginning and the setting of a guinguette on the river. I kept thinking something would happen and I'd remember the original plot and ending, but it never did happen. Hopefully the episode I watched was of another story and I haven't gone senile. I'll have to find it and watch again...
In spite of my confusion, this was a good Maigret. Well, they're all good, but some are better than others, and perhaps the earlier ones are better than the later ones. I believe this one was first published in 1941, making it fairly early. It has the variety of French characters I enjoy encountering in the Maigret stories. show less
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The prolific Belgian-born writer Georges Simenon produced hundreds of fictional works under his own name and 17 pseudonyms, in addition to more than 70 books about Inspector Maigret, long "the favorite sleuth of highbrow detective-story readers" (SR). More than 50 "Simenons" have been made into films. In addition to his mystery stories, he wrote show more what he called "hard" books, the serious psychological novels numbering well over 100. The autobiographical Pedigree, set in his native town of Liege, is perhaps his finest work. The publication of Simenon's intimate memoirs also attracted considerable attention. Simenon himself once said that he would never write a "great novel." Yet Gide called him "a great novelist, perhaps the greatest and truest novelist we have in French literature today," and Thornton Wilder (see Vol. 1) found that Simenon's narrative gift extends "to the tips of his fingers." The following are some of Simenon's novels, exclusive of the Maigret detective stories, that are in print. (Bowker Author Biography) Georges Simenon was born on February 13, 1903 in Liege, Belgium. He wrote more than 200 fiction works under 16 different pseudonyms. His first book, The Case of Peter the Lent led to 80 more of the like including the main character, Inspector Maigret. He published over 400 books that were translated into 50 different languages and sold by the millions. He also wrote psychological novels, including The Man Who Watched the Train Go By. He died on September 4, 1989 in Lausanne. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- The Bar on the Seine
- Original title
- MAIGRET ET LE MARCHAND DE VIN, 1969
- Alternate titles
- Guinguette by the Seine; Maigret and the Tavern by the Seine; The Two-Penny Bar
- Original publication date
- 1932 (original French) (original French); 1940; 1940 (English: Sainsbury) (English: Sainsbury); 2003 (English: Watson) (English: Watson)
- People/Characters
- Jules Maigret
- Important places
- Paris, France
- Related movies*
- La guinguette à deux sous (1975 | IMDb); The Wedding Guest (1962 | IMDb)
- First words
- A radiant late afternoon.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)Handsome yellow clogs that Maigret wanted to try on even before he had taken off his dark city clothes.
- Original language
- French
- Disambiguation notice
- In the French original, La guinguette à deux sous (1931).
Variously published in English as:
(i) "Guinguette by the Seine," (tr. Geoffrey Sainsbury) in Maigret to the Rescue (1940);
(... (show all)ii) Maigret to the Rescue (tr. Geoffrey Sainsbury)(1941);
(iii) "A Spot by the Seine," in Philadelphia Inquirer (tr. Geoffrey Sainsbury) (1942);
(iv) Maigret and the Tavern by the Seine (1990) (tr. Geoffrey Sainsbury);
(v) The Bar on the Seine (tr. David Watson) (2003); and
(vi) The Two-Penny Bar (tr. David Watson) (2014).
*Some information comes from Common Knowledge in other languages. Click "Edit" for more information.
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