Maigret's First Case
Maigret's first study (French: La Première Enquête de Maigret ) is a detective novel by the Belgian writer Georges Simenon. He is the 30th novel of a series of 75 novels and 28 short stories by the Chief Inspector Maigret. The novel was born from September 22 to 30 in 1948 and was published the following year by the publisher Presses de la Cité. The first German translation of Hans Jürgen Will and Barbara Klau was manufactured in 1962 by Kiepenheuer & Malevich. Published in 1978 a new translation of the Diogenes Verlag Roswitha Plancherel Walter.
The novel shows a young Jules Maigret as secretary in the early days of his police service. The display of a flutist who call a woman out of the window of a house for help, and then a shot to have heard, leading to its first investigation. However, it turns out that the house belongs to an influential family and there are groups who do not want investigation of the events. The young Maigret expects the case to rise to the headquarters of the Paris Judicial Police, but is several times too close to it, to acknowledge his service.
Content
April 1913: Jules Maigret is 26 years old and married for five months. Four years ago, he is in the French judicial police, called La Sûreté, occurred. Sponsored by the director Xavier Guichard he has already passed through many hands of the police service in the short time. Now he is for almost a year commissariat secretary at the police station Saint -Georges. His superior is Maxime Le Bret, who is regarded as the most elegant Commissioner of Paris and moves with preference in better circles.
On the evening of April 15, the Paris police is busy on a state visit, as opposed Maigret takes the display of the young flutist Justin Minard. This will in the Rue Chaptal have the cries of a woman at the window and then heard a shot. A servant refused him access to the house and injured him by blows. Maigret goes in the evening with the witness at the scene, although he suspects that he thus difficulties could barter for it, because there resides the family of the late coffee mogul Balthazar. Although leads Richard Gendreau - Balthazar, the son of the house, Maigret through all rooms, but can be intimated clearly that Le Bret is a friend of the house. So the next morning quotes this overzealous young policemen to his office. Only when there is clear evidence that Richard Maigret has played something, he can identify the secretary without support and on their own.
In stark contrast to his later cases, the young Maigret is in his investigation unsure yet and is able to impress with his slight build any of the respondents. In addition, it gives way to the flutist Minard, who wants to escape his tyrannical wife, not from the side. After experiencing Maigret that the power in the company Balthazar is shared between brother Richard and sister Lise, the latter was the favorite of his grandfather and company founder. And he learns of Bob d' Anseval, a abgeglittenen in criminal circles nobleman, who is known simply as " The Count ", earns his money with all sorts of illegal business and allegedly having an affair with Lise. Now he has lost, his driver Dede boasts of money, and as Maigret moves to close on the heels, he receives a blow to the head, which he survived only with much happiness and severe headaches.
Maigret is allowed to interrogate the arrested Dede at the Quai des Orfèvres. For a moment, the goal of his desires, at the headquarters of the Paris Criminal realized Maigret that Dede was prepared for his interview and Le Bret appears to thwart the investigation of his secretary. After his studies as expected fizzled him, the case is taken out of your hands. Louis is arrested, the servant of the house, but in the official account is to be read, he only shot a burglar. He is not convicted, and the Gendreau - Balthazar remains the scandal spared.
Only the freed Dede reveals the young Maigret, who in his naivete is attractive to him, the facts: not Love Lise has led into the arms of Bob's, but a clause in the will of her grandfather, the coming aspired to the peerage for his family of modest. Richard in turn wanted to buy Bob as a lover Lise, that he had behind her back free disposal of the company. Bob was driven that night by Dede in the House of Gendreau - Balthazar to teach both plans a rejection. Presumably there was a fight between the two men, Lise panicked, called for help, wanted to shoot at Richard and shot it Bob. As Maigret searched the house, the corpse had just been taken away. Richard Dedes silence -bought with 50,000 francs.
Maxime Le Bret is justified before Maigret, he had a clear conscience, and Lise would have been anyway never convicted. Consequently, we have the family can also save the scandal. Nevertheless, he wants his young secretary wegloben as quickly as possible in order to no longer occur under his eyes need. As Maigret is called into the Head of the Criminal Investigation Bureau, he learns that Xavier Guichard, Maigret revered as a father, the real procedure suspects. He also provides benefits and harms of the truth. He promoted to Inspector Maigret in the head brigade on the Quai des Orfèvres. Maigret celebrates the carriage with the flutist, and end up making him Madame Maigret a coffee.
Backgrounds to figure Maigret
Maigret's first study is one of the few novels in the series, the names provide precise information. How can the statement of April 15, 1913 at the Maigret is 26 years old, the conclusion to a birth year of 1886/1887 to. This stands in contradiction to the other two novels, assign the action a specific date: Maigret and the late Monsieur Gallet (1884/1885) and Maigret and the lonely man (1910). The contradictory information about Maigret's age in the course of the series have tried to smooth Maigret various researchers in chronologies.
In addition to other concrete data on Maigret's police career and his marriage with Madame Maigret, some typical motifs of the series are introduced: In the police station of Saint -Georges Maigret discovers his love for the cast-iron stove, which he also remains true to the Quai des Orfèvres, as long the central heating is set up. Maigret also discovered two tools that will help him in future cases to hatch the truth behind one case: the alcohol and the disease. For the first time he experienced while pondering over its investigation of that mental " switch " that once "should be for him so typical that it would make him one day to the legendary figure on the Quai des Orfèvres. "
It also falls for the first time the term " fate flicker " of the subsequent activity Maigret's a better description than that of a police detective. The young Maigret finds himself in his secret career aspirations as " physician and priest in one, a man who recognized the destiny of another at first sight. [ ... ] It would have gone to this man and had asked him for advice, as one consults a doctor. It would be something like a ' fate Flicker ' been [ ... ] because he could put himself in the shoes of all men in the lives of all people. "
A storyline that is scribed at the end, in the series, however, remains open. Thirty years after the events Maigret Lise Gendreau meets again, which now bears the name of an Italian nobleman. She asked the Commissioner to seek her daughter, who had been abducted to England. Maigret would " have to protect the second time the honor of the family Balthazar " in these studies. However, there is no history in the Maigret series, which tells of this rescue.
Reception
Tilman Spreckelsen commented during his Maigret marathons: " This book draws its appeal from the portrait of the Commissioner as a young man, so far, so expectable. But that it took for themselves ( and to the minor characters into ) is so refreshing rebellious, already showing what can Simenon. " For Thomas Narcejac Simenon demonstrated in La Première Enquête de Maigret simply his virtuosity.
From the perspective Armin Arnold formed La Première Enquête de Maigret, the inspiration for Friedrich Dürrenmatt's detective novel The Judge and His Hangman. In his study, he demonstrated many parallels between the novels, such that the two investigating police officers will further complicates the analysis against influential suspects by their superiors. This Dürrenmatt had " la première enquête " Maigret in " la dernière enquête " his Commissioner Barlach transformed. Even Jean Lahougues novel La Doublure de Magrite based on Simenon template. Michel Sirvent spoke of a hypertextual transformation.
The novel was filmed in 1963 as part of the Maigret TV series with Rupert Davies. The German title was Maigret Lapointe is a chance. In 1992, Radio Bremen produced a radio play, directed by Till mountains. The Maigret said Uwe Müller.
Expenditure
- Georges Simenon: La Première Enquête de Maigret. Presses de la Cité, Paris, 1949 ( first edition ).
- Georges Simenon: Maigret's first investigation. Translation: Hans Jürgen Will, Barbara Klau. Kiepenheuer & Petrovich, Cologne 1962.
- Georges Simenon: Maigret's first investigation. Translation: Hans Jürgen Will, Barbara Klau. Heyne, München 1966.
- Georges Simenon: Maigret's first investigation. Translation: Roswitha Plancherel Walter. Diogenes, Zurich 1978, ISBN 3-257-20501-5.
- Georges Simenon: Maigret's first investigation. All Maigret novels in 75 volumes, Volume 30 Translation: Roswitha Plancherel Walter. Diogenes, Zurich 2008, ISBN 978-3-257-23830-3.