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The Yellow Dog (2014)

The Yellow Dog (2014)

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Rating
3.62 of 5 Votes: 2
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ISBN
0141393475 (ISBN13: 9780141393476)
Language
English
Publisher
penguin books

About book The Yellow Dog (2014)

The Yellow Dog is all about a stormy week in the coastal town of Concarneau. It starts with the shooting of Monsieur Mostaguen, a local wine merchant who doesn't have an enemy in the world. Inspector Maigret is called in to investigate, but before he can get very far there are more mysterious happenings. Poison in the customary drinks of a set of prominent citizens who often play cards and drink together. Then one of their number disappears, leaving an empty car and bloodstains behind. The townspeople become panicked with each incident and it doesn't help that someone is sending inflammatory messages to the newspapers. And then there's the giant-sized tramp lurking about. Will Maigret discover the secret that is at the bottom of it all? Will he find out what Emma, the hotel waitress, has to hide? And what about the yellow dog--which appears each time tragedy is about to strike?For most of the book, I was right there with the mayor of the town--I couldn't figure out what the heck Maigret was doing. He seemed to spend a lot of time looking at the scenery--the houses, the streets, the coastline--and not a whole lot of time actually investigating. This is a really good example of atmosphere. Simenon gives a great picture of a town in the grip of terror and anxiety. Even the descriptions of the countryside and the buildings add to the picture of panic. High marks for reeling the reader into the feel of the story. But, as a mystery novel, I'm afraid it doesn't quite meet the mark. There is no way the reader could possibly come up with the complete solution--you might get half-way there, but not all the way. I prefer the usual Golden Age rules of fair play. A bare three stars--mostly for the wonderfully descriptive writing.

Of the Maigret stories that I have read this is closest to a traditional whodunit. There is a crime – or a series of crimes: a shooting, an attempted poisoning, a missing person, a successful poisoning, another shooting – Maigret shuffles around occasionally questioning a witness or suspect, finally gathers all the suspects in a room, explains the crimes and reveals the guilty. It all takes place in a Breton fishing port and Maigret arrives with a young and enthusiastic assistant: he looks for clues and takes fingerprints, but Maigret is not interested in that sort of thing: he observes character and finds motives. In reality this is probably not a sensible form of police detection, but in the universe of fictional detectives Maigret takes his stand against Sherlock Holmes and Poirot and all the other literary detectives who solve crimes as though they were crossword puzzles: for Maigret crimes are reflections of character, a criminal investigation a form of character study. He works alone and is at odds with his superior – in this case the local mayor. At the end law and justice coincide with the exposure of the guilty, but Maigret purposefully overlooks another crime, trusting his evaluation of character rather than pushing the law...so maybe law and justice don't completely coincide. And it is all put together with Simenon’s usual efficient economy: dialogue and terse descriptions. The Maigret stories tend to merge one into another: after a while it is difficult to remember which is which, but, as always, I like the atmosphere and Maigret’s grumpy persona.

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I have been meaning to read Simenon for years, ever since I read an interview with him in one of the many anthologies of Paris Review interviews. But for whatever reason, it wasn't until last week, at my new favorite bookstore, in downtown Morehead, Kentucky, Coffeetree Books, that I bought a copy. And I'm so glad I did. Simenon is a master. A fantastic writer who establishes mood in such quick brushstrokes of prose and who teases the reader with just enough in each chapter to think she knows whodunnit while providing great feints in opposite directions to keep things interesting. I think his creation of Inspector Maigret rivals Chandler's Marlowe and Hammett's Spade. The only reason I'm withholding a star (another reason to have half-stars, Goodreads) is that I thought the finale was a little talky. THen again, aren't all detective novels a little talky in the end?I'm certainly going to read more Simenon, and apparently have only seventy four Maigret novels to go!
—Tom

"Era impossibile indovinare i sentimenti di Maigret, tutto intento a caricare la la pipa con le dita tozze. La sua borsa da tabacco era lisa. Il suo sguardo vagava, attraverso una vetrata, sull'ampio orizzonte del mare". Basterebbero queste semplici parole che sono la summa di ciò che è Maigret e di cosa rappresenta nel panorama del giallo, non solo francese. I romanzi di Simenon dedicati al commissario Maigret si caratterizzano per uno stile semplice, breve, ma essenziale. Poche frasi che puntano diritto all'obiettivo, a quello che si vuole raggiungere e dire. La figura di Maigret si i staglia diventando il protagonista di un giallo con segreti e misteri da svelare. Su questo mondo, si erge la figura di un uomo arguto che fin dall'inizio ci fa entrare in punta di piedi nel mondo di Maigret. "Il cane giallo" rientra in una indagine che si svolge in Francia, nella zona di mare del Concarneau, in cui le vicende delle persone comuni (la cameriera Emma, su tutte), sono la parte migliore di una storia in cui il genio di Maigret è più vivo che mai e il paese è in continua trasformazione, proprio come i suoi abitanti.
—Simona

Like many of the early Simenon’s this book is more an exploration of the atmosphere and culture of a small European town than it is about the solving of a crime. As the reader finds out late in the book, Maigret’s apparent passivity in the early part of the story was due not to confusion but rather was a conscious choice. One wonders if Simenon consciously created a story in which the reader would feel the same frustration with Maigret as did many of his critics in the story. When Maigret reveals in the final chapters that he knew exactly what he was doing at the very moments that others were most unsure of his competence the reader may feel that they have fallen into the same trap. One may imagine that Simenon enjoyed knowing that the reader, who felt such joy at feeling superior to the petty provincial officials would be suddenly forced to realize just how much like them she was.The denouement is both depressing and uplifting. The reader is aware that nothing that Maigret does, indeed nothing Maigret could do, would change the enormous inequities and inequalities of the world Simenon was writing about. Yet those who Maigret considered truly guilty did pay for their crimes and those who Maigret considered the true victims are allowed to escape and make a reasonable life for themselves. It is, perhaps, only after the reader has closed the book for the last time that they realize that Simenon has once again used Maigret, a character who supposedly stands for justice and order, to provide a cutting critic of the social order he is tasked with upholding.
—Mmyoung

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