Virtually every series hero has one or two of these stories somewhere in their oeuvre. Closer to home, it seems like Murder, She Wrote was based almost entirely on the concept of the Interrupted Vacation. Guess how that turns out. In Maigret Takes the Waters , he tries to relax in Vichy for his health. No dice. The book begins with Maigret canceling a planned holiday in Alsace with Madame Maigret. He and Madame Maigret head to the port city where they learn the details of the case.
As soon as the ship returned from its voyage, however, the captain, Octave Fallut, was murdered. Investigating, Maigret discovers that a sailor broke his leg while the ship was still in port, and then, just a few days into the voyage, the young cabin boy, Jean-Marie, was swept overboard during the storm.
Were these events connected? Are they in some way connected to the death of the captain? No one on the crew seems to want to talk about what happened while the ship was out to sea. As is always the case with a Maigret novel, the solution is less about the who than the why. Often, the inspector begins not with physical clues or circumstantial evidence.
He begins with the victim. Was it the grand passion, his belated big adventure? Or just a sordid affair? Maigret will, of course, find the answers to these questions, and they will help lead him to discover who killed the captain. These small touches are a Simenon specialty, a way to show us that even in a book about a murder, life always goes on.
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