Book 4 in the Maigret series, which I'm wandering back through via the medium of audio books. Which as we all know is successful based hugely on the narrator. In this case Gareth Armstrong does a great job, with a voice that's laid back enough to make it pleasant listening, but not so much as to become soporific.
At this point in the series most of the fundamentals of Maigret are in place - tenacity, attention to detail, observational and keenly aware of his surroundings and the people around him. This novel however introduces the concept of guilt - and how Maigret deals with his own. After correctly fearing his curiosity about the odd behaviour of a shabbily-dressed man, waiting in a Netherlands train station in 1930, has lead to the man's suicide, he finds himself on an odd journey - wanting an explanation of the background and circumstances that would have contributed. Taking him from Germany to France and Belgium it's the life of the dead man that Maigret believes holds the key to explaining his death.
In a particularly interesting side-note I read somewhere that the story was informed by the youthful suicide of a friend of the author in Belgium in his earlier life, something that obviously affected Simenon deeply as well.
The Hanged Man of Saint-Pholien
On a trip to Brussels, Maigret unwittingly causes a man's suicide, but his own remorse is overshadowed by the discovery of the sordid events that drove the desperate man to shoot himself.
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