‘The Saint-Fiacre Affair’ by Georges Simenon

Published by Penguin Classics,
27 July 2025.
ISBN: 978-0-24178825-7 (PB)
Originally Published 1932.

Shaun Whiteside’s excellent and idiomatic translation of The Saint-Fiacre Affair has been newly republished. The novel is the thirteenth in the Maigret series and appeared originally in 1932 when Simenon was 29.

Maigret is visiting his home village in the centre of France for the first time since the death of his father because the police have received an anonymous message: ‘I wish to inform you that a crime will be committed at the church of Saint-Fiacre during first mass on All Souls’ Day.’ The mass appears to have passed without incident until the Countess of Saint-Fiacre is discovered dead in her pew at the end of the service. There are no signs of violence. Maigret is initially concerned that the countess’s missal has gone missing and he is eager to track it down. When he recovers it, Maigret discovers a note which is assumed to have hastened the death of the already ailing aristocrat.

The detective has a number of problems, one being whether a crime has actually been committed despite the countess’s demise. Another is that Maigret’s father had been the estate manager for the old count (now dead). Initially nobody seems to recognize Maigret, but gradually his connection to the village dawns on the inhabitants.

The young count has a mistress and financial problems; his mother had young lovers; the estate manager has his own problems; the local doctor and priest have their difficulties. Debts, greed, affairs, gigolos and jealousies are revealed. The story works its way to a gloomy and gripping dinner party at the chateau, presided over by the count with all possible suspects present. The count announces that the ‘murderer’ will die by midnight and claims that ‘we are carrying out a psychological experiment’. The tension builds, but Maigret takes a back seat:
 

Never in his career had Maigret felt so uneasy. And it was probably the first time that he had a very clear sense that he was not a match for the situation. Events were out of his control. Sometimes he thought he was starting to understand, and a moment later a phrase from Saint-Fiacre called everything into question again!  

One of the many qualities of Simenon is his ability to create atmosphere and character in a few lines. There is a constantly suffocating, nostalgic and yearning mood in the village. The cold and darkness of winter is relentless. Maigret is typically sparing with speech - he prefers to observe. The writing is quietly arresting (‘The bellringer had walked flat-footedly away, like a theatre director who doesn’t care to watch his play’). Simenon’s economy extends to the length of the novel: in barely 150 pages he creates a complete world (some contemporary writers could take note).

I haven’t read as many Maigret novels as I would like, given that Simenon wrote 75 of them. I don’t know if I shall ever get round to the rest of them, but The Saint-Fiacre Affair certainly encourages me to do so.
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Reviewer: David Whittle

Georges Simenon was born in Liège, Belgium in 1903 and died in 1989. At sixteen he began work as a journalist on the Gazette de Liège. He moved to Paris in 1922 and became a prolific writer of popular fiction, working under a number of pseudonyms. In 1931 he published the first of the novels featuring Maigret, his most famous and enduring creation. He wrote 75 books in the Maigret series.

 

David Whittle is firstly a musician (he is an organist and was Director of Music at Leicester Grammar School for over 30 years) but has always enjoyed crime fiction. This led him to write a biography of the composer Bruce Montgomery who is better known to lovers of crime fiction as Edmund Crispin, about whom he gives talks now and then. He is currently convenor of the East Midlands Chapter of the Crime Writers