| One day, Ernestine Micou, a woman who Maigret has arrested 17 years before, comes to him and tells the story of a strange adventure her husband, Alfred Jussiame, a safecracker, has had in Neuilly, where he found the dead body of a woman while committing a burglary. Maigret goes there and finds that the inhabitants of the house were a dentist, Guillaume Serre and his mother but they pretend that there was no burglary and no dead body. However, the strange thing is that Guillaume's wife is missing but they claim that she left for Holland, her native country, exactly the day Alfred pretended to have seen the body. Even stranger is the fact that Maigret realised that the window pane of the room Alfred pretended to have broken in order to get into the house is newly replaced and that his mother's husband also died in strange conditions. | ||
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Plot & Themes Tone of story - Dry-cynical How difficult to spot villain? - Difficult, but some clues given Time/era of story: What % of story relates directly to the mystery, not the subplot? - 80% Misc. Murder Plotlets - Proving innocence of very obvious suspect Kind of investigator Kid or adult book? - Adult or Young Adult Book Any non-mystery subplot? descript. of violence and chases - 30 % Planning/preparing, gather info, debate puzzles/motives - 50 % Feelings, relationships, character bio/development - 10 % How society works & physical descript. (people, objects, places) - 10 % Crime Thriller Yes Murder Mystery (killer unknown) Yes Main Character Gender - Male Profession/status: Age: - 40's-50's Ethnicity/Race Unusual characteristics: Main Adversary Identity: - Female Age: - 40's-50's Profession/status: Eccentric: Yes Motive of antagonist - money/treasure How sensitive is this character? Intelligence - Average intelligence Setting Europe Yes European country: - France Misc setting - fancy mansion Writing Style Accounts of torture and death? - moderately detailed references to deaths Unusual forms of death - poisoning Unusual form of death? Yes Amount of dialog - significantly more descript than dialog |
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