The Flemish House

Short (156 p) but quite engrossing mystery; Inspector Maigret travels to the French-Belgian border to investigate the disappearance of a young mother. An apparently simple story has many complexities to it - the working class woman had had an illegitimate child by the son of a well to do local family. Could the son be angry at the cost in maintainance and the difficulties to his ongoing engagement to the diaphanous Marguerite? What about the missing woman's bad tempered brother? Or the local bargeman with a police record for indecent assault?

Simenon's descriptions of the lace really bring the account alive- a small town on the flooded River Meuse in January, the juxtaposition of the cosy houses with the mud and grey skies. And a very show more good ending... show less

Early Maigret is full of Astérix-like excursions into neighbouring cultures, but this one is a bit of a cheat, as it's not chez les flamands in general, but chez some particular flamands who happen to live in France. (Anyway, we've already had a Maigret story set in Belgium...)
As well as taking us back to a culture very close to the one where he grew up - a small town on the Meuse - Simenon is also indulging his well-known fondness for the life of the rivers and canals, as once again all the main characters are involved in some way with the navigation of the river. And the weather is as bad as ever, so that the famous overcoat is perpetually soaking wet, and the chapeau-melon at risk of being blown away. In other words, this is a show more classic bit of early Maigret, to be enjoyed for its period atmosphere rather than for the sophistication of the crime story. show less

Determined Anna Peeters, through sheer perseverance, gets Chief Inspector Jules Maigret to intercede in her family’s case. Located in Givet, a French seaport on the border with Belgium, the Peeters family runs a shop, the Épicerie Peeters (a.k.a. the Flemish House), on the French side of the border with Belgium, a large shop that caters to Belgian sailors who work on the barges that ply the River Meuse. Anna’s brother Joseph, a law student in Nancy 200 kilometers away, is believed to have fathered a child with a lower-class local lass named Germaine Piedboeuf; understandably for the time (the novel, first released in English in 1940 as The Flemish Shop), this bourgeois family insists that “it’s never been proved” and heap show more scorn on the girl — but, even so, they slip her a monthly maintenance of 100 francs for herself and JoJo, now two-and-a-half.

But, on Jan. 3, after a row at the Flemish House, Germaine disappears. All of Givet, resentful of the Flemish and well-to-do Peeters family, believes the family guilty. Even the local police tell Maigret they’re sure of the family’s guilt and will make arrests very soon. But Maigret travels from Paris to Givet to see for himself.

The French denizens of Givet harbor such consuming hatred of the Peeters because they’re Flemings and well-to-do. The Flemish House serves as a reminder of how easily prejudice can obscure what’s really going on.

As ever, readers can’t go wrong with a Maigret novel, and The Flemish House is not exception. The ending took me completely by surprise! Also, as ever, the best way to enjoy Chief Inspector Maigret is with the Audible version, narrated by Gareth Armstrong. show less

SPOILER ALERT: Simenon as usual excels in atmospherics, here in his creation of the family and their life in their shop/house. Simenon is also realistic in his handling of the case. Maigret knows that he can find no evidence to arrest or convict the murderer and that he has helped unwittingly to set the police on a false trail. He is friendly enough with the murderer to get a private confession and later he has the pleasure to learn how badly the killer’s plan worked. I find the quality of this series so consistent in these early titles that I can’t say much new about this, the fourteenth of the new translations that I’ve read. Since the quality is high, I have little to complain about.

A frustrating book out of a frustrating case for Maigret. He is called to a border town near flanders (like some other Maigret book... which one?) to help out the family of a distant relative. One of the family has been accused of killing the girl he got pregnant. The family is dutch chilly- cold and emotionless and all their hopes in the accused son. Maigret is rather unattractive in the way he treats the local police inspector (he is unofficially there) and doesn't tell him much and practically makes fun of him (not too nice). Finally it turns out to be one of the remarkably icy sisters / daughter who brained the girl with a hammer (!) while feeling... nothing. Dark.

I suppose I preferred the previous Maigret (My Friend Maigret) because reading it I was in the south of France, on the lovely island of Porquerolles, shmoozing with the locals and drinking cool white wine, whereas in this one I was in the cold north of France near the Belgian border in the rain and I don't like shnapps. But it was still a good read.

An enjoyable, easy read that kept me guessing until the end. I found the setting along the Belgian border and the subtle conflict between the Flemish and the French particularly interesting.