Pietr The Latvian
Ratings7
Average rating3.1
It was a bit slow at the start, but really picked up speed about halfway through. Had twists I did not expect, which is nice. Only knock I have is that the bulk of the story is that Maigret spends a lot of time just standing or sitting around, waiting and that's only when he isn't rushing off from place to place. Nonetheless, I would recommend it.
I was kind of lost in the sauce when it came to the actual mystery until the end, but man no one writes about walking around a city in the pouring rain like Simenon.
Short Review: I read this on John Wilson's (Books and Culture editor) recommendation. Penguin is doing new translations of the whole (more than 100 volume) series. I like starting at the beginning so I knew that this was not one of his best rated books. It is a solid short mystery.
But there was on line that keeps stilling with me. Maigret says he looks for the person's normal humanity (my paraphrase), while most detectives look for the criminal. Maigret usually finds the criminal while looking for their humanity, but other detectives may miss the criminal because at heart everyone has a human side.
My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/pietr-the-latvian/