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The circumstances of Monsieur Gallet's death all seem fake: the name the deceased was travelling under and his presumed profession and, more worryingly, his family's grief. Their haughtiness seems to hide ambiguous feelings about the hapless man. In this haunting story, Maigret discovers the appalling truth and the real crime hidden behind the surface of lies.Tags
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Summary: Gallet’s death seems that of an uninteresting failure until Maigret discovers that nothing about him is as it seems.
A non-descript man checks into a hotel in Tracy-Sancerre. His usual room is unavailable, so he takes a back one, facing out on a courtyard, The next morn, he is found dead with a gunshot wound to the face and a stab wound to the heart.
Maigret is sent to investigate. He finds an ordinary man, Monsieur Gallet, with an old, shiny suit. The man’s widow, who lived in Saint Fargeau, thought he was in Rouen. She even had a postcard from there. Maigret learns he was a traveling salesman. The widow is rather vain, from a family that considered her husband a failure. Her only consolation is that the dead man had taken show more out a 300,000 franc life insurance policy. Her son seems aloof and ambitious, and not terribly broken up.
When Maigret contacts the man’s company, he finds they have not employed him for eighteen years. He’s not in Rouen. Nor is he working at the job everyone believed he was doing. His attacker or attackers first wounded him from outside his room, then killed him with a knife wound in his room. And how has he purchased a house, paid for a life insurance policy, and maintained their lifestyle when he has no job? Why was he in Tracy-Sancerre?
Suddenly, this non-descript, unattractive man becomes interesting to Maigret. The fascination in this story is how Maigret discovers the nature of the double life this man was living and how he died. Like others in the series, there are just enough twists, interesting characters and red herrings to make this interesting without dragging out the story. Simenon’s genius lies in telling a story with nothing extraneous and lots that is puzzling. show less
A non-descript man checks into a hotel in Tracy-Sancerre. His usual room is unavailable, so he takes a back one, facing out on a courtyard, The next morn, he is found dead with a gunshot wound to the face and a stab wound to the heart.
Maigret is sent to investigate. He finds an ordinary man, Monsieur Gallet, with an old, shiny suit. The man’s widow, who lived in Saint Fargeau, thought he was in Rouen. She even had a postcard from there. Maigret learns he was a traveling salesman. The widow is rather vain, from a family that considered her husband a failure. Her only consolation is that the dead man had taken show more out a 300,000 franc life insurance policy. Her son seems aloof and ambitious, and not terribly broken up.
When Maigret contacts the man’s company, he finds they have not employed him for eighteen years. He’s not in Rouen. Nor is he working at the job everyone believed he was doing. His attacker or attackers first wounded him from outside his room, then killed him with a knife wound in his room. And how has he purchased a house, paid for a life insurance policy, and maintained their lifestyle when he has no job? Why was he in Tracy-Sancerre?
Suddenly, this non-descript, unattractive man becomes interesting to Maigret. The fascination in this story is how Maigret discovers the nature of the double life this man was living and how he died. Like others in the series, there are just enough twists, interesting characters and red herrings to make this interesting without dragging out the story. Simenon’s genius lies in telling a story with nothing extraneous and lots that is puzzling. show less
I think that Maigret’s brooding, aloof manner really suits this storyline very well. The mystery was revealed carefully enough to complement Maigret’s personality.
Its nice and noir, so to speak, how Simenon gives us such bare bones stories with so much character in them. I do not feel like I missed out on anything, that the book was lacking in some obvious respect, or that the story needed to be expanded in any direction.
From the first experience at the Gallet home, Maigret is never able to shake a feeling of wrongness that pervades his whole investigation. There is also a particular prop that is collected here and remains with Maigret and the reader throughout the novel. I like the economy of the novel and the strength of the main show more characters. Overall, while it is not a cheerful read, it is a solid noir-type mystery. show less
Its nice and noir, so to speak, how Simenon gives us such bare bones stories with so much character in them. I do not feel like I missed out on anything, that the book was lacking in some obvious respect, or that the story needed to be expanded in any direction.
From the first experience at the Gallet home, Maigret is never able to shake a feeling of wrongness that pervades his whole investigation. There is also a particular prop that is collected here and remains with Maigret and the reader throughout the novel. I like the economy of the novel and the strength of the main show more characters. Overall, while it is not a cheerful read, it is a solid noir-type mystery. show less
Detective Chief Inspector Maigret is called from Paris to investigate the killing of a petty traveling salesman at a hotel in Sancerre, a beautiful region overlooking the Loire river and popular with holidaygoers. What seems to be a minor murder of a minor man becomes increasingly complex as conflicting clues proliferate, all leading precisely nowhere. Maigret will need all his dogged ingenuity to solve the death of a man too mediocre to kill.
Maigret's mysteries are all tinged with the tragedy of the human condition, and this is a deeply melancholy mystery. Nothing makes sense until the final pages, and the revelation of the truth of Monsieur Gallet left me with a satisfying sense both of closure and of profound tragedy. I think this show more story will stay with me for a while, which is quite an achievement for a small mystery about the small death of a small man. show less
Maigret's mysteries are all tinged with the tragedy of the human condition, and this is a deeply melancholy mystery. Nothing makes sense until the final pages, and the revelation of the truth of Monsieur Gallet left me with a satisfying sense both of closure and of profound tragedy. I think this show more story will stay with me for a while, which is quite an achievement for a small mystery about the small death of a small man. show less
What does it say about me that my favorite book series are all crime/mystery? Matthew Scudder, inspector Montalbano, Strange and Quinn. Add to this list Detective Maigret. Written by Georges Simenon, a writer whom Faulker compared to Chekov, Maigret is a keen observer of human nature and a wonderful companion to follow as he tries to solve the murder of a seemingly unassuming traveling salesman. Like all of my favorite mysteries, this book is a comment on social class and economic forces. Written in the 1930s, some of the psychological insights are a bit creaky, but they're true to Maigret's character and the times. The Late Monsieur Gallet is my third Maigret adventure, and I'm looking forward to many more.
How did I never hear of these books and this author? A little noir-y, a little dark, but far more psychological than most other stuff written at the time. 150 pages a pop, so quick reads as well, despite having the literary rep and not being pulpy. Very good, looking forward to others.
An overly complicated set-piece, you'd need to know how to build a Rube Goldberg to figure it out. My sense is that Simenon dove in too deep too soon, perhaps to get it out of his system. This was only the third in the series, after all, and he was still getting his bearings. As was Magritte. As are we.
For me, reading Maigret is to be taken to somewhere, usually in France, where I can get lost in the ambiance -- the bars, the villas of the rich, the embankments of the Loire in Paris, the apartments of the bourgeoisie. It also means spending time with some interesting characters, although usually, with some exceptions, not ones I ever get to like. And so it was with this story. It has some good twists and turns, maybe more than the usual Maigret. And once again, I didn't like or feel sympathetic to any of the characters. Until the end.
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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 Late Monsieur Gallet
- Original title
- MONSIER GALLET DÉCÉDÉ, 1932
- Alternate titles
- Maigret Stonewalled
- Original publication date
- 1931-02; 1932 (in English) (in English)
- People/Characters
- Jules Maigret; Émile Gallet; Aurore Gallet; Inspector Grenier; Monsieur Tardivon; Henry Gallet (show all 13); Eugénie; Éléonore Boursang; Mother Canut; Tiburce de Saint-Hilaire; Joseph Moers; Monsieur Padailhan; Louise Maigret
- Important places
- Sancerre, Cher, Centre-Val de Loire, France; Paris, Île-de-France, France; Saint-Fargeau, Seine-et-Marne, France; 36 Quai des Orfèvres, Paris, Île-de-France, France; Boulevard Richard-Lenoir, Paris, France
- First words
- It was on 27 June 1930 that Chief Inspector Maigret had his first encounter with the dead man, who was destined to be a most intimate and disturbing feature of his life for weeks on end.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)But, after all, its capital is ninety million.
- Original language
- French
- Disambiguation notice
- In the French original, M. Gallet décédé (1931).
Variously published in English as:
(i) The Death of Monsieur Gallet (1932), and in Introducing Inspector Maigret (1933) (trans. ... (show all)Anthony Abbot); and
(ii) Maigret Stonewalled (1963), and in Maigret at the Crossroads (1983) (trans. Margaret Marshall); and
(iii) The Late Monsieur Gallet (2013) (trans. Anthea Bell).
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- ASINs
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