Finally the first Maigret I really didn’t finish… Devilish clever and post-modernist and all. This is the real Parisian detective Maigret writing his memoirs about how he came to meet the Belgian writer Georges Sim, who became Georges Simenon, stealing his character and his name, his shape, his methods, simplifying his cases, and making him available to the public and even available to be played by actors who in no way resemble him. His resentment of this is very clever, very smart, and funny conceptually, but it doesn’t grab like a real Maigret novel. I’m not sure we want to be reminded of the fictional nature of the heroes of our novels. It’s confusing and runs against some vein, as if some character in a play was constantly to remind you he was in a play. Two cracking Maigret novels. One from the plane and one immediately afterwards...

A retired Maigret is drawn into a strange world by an eccentric old lady. Told at great pace and with great drive, it is amazing how much plot he gets out of pure dialogue and character. Unexpected and thrilling.

Again an unusual Maigret where Madame Maigret is drawn improbably into a puzzling situation.

The most marvellous memoirs. Described as “Stories from my life” they reveal a surprising side to David Cornwell. Not just the wonderful people he has met, and the encounters he has had, but many sharp observations about life, secrecy, parental disappointment and what turns us into us. I was fascinated to see the novelist constantly at work, examining character for fictional uses, and almost always playing life back into fiction and vice versa, it’s as if he is more comfortable with fiction than reality.

Dyer gets dryer and dryer. His wit and his incredible clear eye looking closely at things, plus the ease with which he slots himself into his own narrative, essay world, makes him unique and very enjoyable.

A Brief History with Documents. A short readable account of the atrocities which occurred in Paris early on the morning of August 24^th 1572 when after a Royal marriage the Catholics massacred the visiting Protestant Huguenots by the thousands in the streets of Paris. Shockingly relevant history of the endless animosities and atrocities committed in the name of religions. Was it in fact Marie de Medici who planned it, and persuaded her son Charles IX to go along with it, after she had opened fire on Admiral Coligny? Still the sexiest historical movie ever made. La Reine Margot.

Read in a day. A wonderfully accomplished original novel. Told from inside the womb where his mother is plotting to betray and murder his father. Nice Hamlet echoes but the omniscience and anxiety for the world he accords this helpless inmate and witness to dreadful things is what makes it so witty and original and fascinating. I loved it.

An odd one this. A retired Maigret definitely a fish out of water accompanies a young man to see his father in New York who then immediately disappears. Who is the young man? Why does he disappear? What is the crime. Maigret wanders around New York, and finally draws the strings together of thirty year old events. Strange. How much he depends on his Parisian milieu and how little he understands of New York.

I got about half way through this and got bored with the New York characters and their world and lovers. I think if you’re going to do adultery you have to be at least Tolstoy. I gave it another go when I got back and it still left me cold. I’m sad as I had him down to become great. He may yet I suppose.