Maigret Sets a Trap

Five perfectly ordinary women living in the same district are murdered; Maigret sets a trap using his fellow police officers. It's often said that one reads Maigret for Maigret, not for the story. That being the case, Sachs has struck just the right note for this aging and weary police inspector. The chief problem here is that there isn't much variation in the minor characters, making it difficult to differentiate among them or to figure out who's speaking. However, Sachs handles the narrative very well. He says proper names in a French accent in deference to the Paris setting, and his briskly clipped tone handles them easily. His pacing is steady, reflecting the matter-of-fact tone of police procedures. S.F. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine


The hunt for a serial killer has become such a convention of today's crime fiction that it's almost surprising to find it treated as a fresh subject in this tense, cat-and-mouse detective thriller, written in the mid-1950s. It's a hot August in Paris, and Inspector Maigret is setting a trap for "the Montmartre killer," who in the past six months has killed five women on deserted streets--suddenly, leaving no witnesses, following no apparent pattern or motive. Simenon, famous in his lifetime as a master of compression and plot structure, adapts perfectly to audio; his prose is already abridged, his pace is brisk and compact, but rich in atmospheric detail. And Sachs's reading is a marvel: subtle and precise, he changes effortlessly from voice to voice, keeping pace with a story that relies heavily on dialogue. One forgets his Madame Maigret is not a woman, and forgets that he is not Maigret himself. D.A.W. Winner of AUDIOFILE Earphones Award (c) AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine


The BBC's radio adaptation of Simenon's Maigret stories finds the French detective, played by Maurice Denham, discussing four cases--"Maigret Goes Home," "Maigret Sets A Trap," "Maigret at the Crossroads," and "Maigret Has Doubts"--with Simenon himself, as played by Michael Gough. Denham creates a thoughtful Maigret who's got a few tricks up his sleeve and has a keen sense of duty and justice. The cases begin with a letter warning Maigret that a crime will be committed and end with the policeman sharing his fears that an innocent man was executed because of his failure to solve a murder. Each is a well-done production with a climax that clinches the case. J.A.S. (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine