Un Maigret des débuts, sympa, avec un commissaire qui semble perdu, dérouté, ne comprenant rien et se laissant flotter.

Un livre qui débute curieusement, avec un condamné à mort qui se voit offrir une curieuse évasion par le commissaire.

Un polar sous le signe de la manipulation et de la peine de mort ( )

El condenado a muerte duda un instante ante la puerta de su celda: ¡realmente está abierta y nadie lo vigila!

Amparados en la oscuridad del patio de la cárcel, Maigrety las autoridades judiciales, cómplices de este simulacro de evasión, observan cómo el hombre escapa de la prisión. «Arriesga su carrera, comisario. Si sale mal, esto originará un escándalo», le dicen. Y Maigret, seguro de sí, aunque un poco nervioso, contesta: «¿Acaso la cabeza de un hombre no vale un escándalo?».

El comisario tiene diez días para descubrir al verdadero culpable; diez días de ardua investigación, y también de sorprendentes descubrimientos que lo llevarán a sumergirse en el mundo de la bohemia de Montparnasse y de las lujosas mansiones de Saint-Cloud.

Maigret Saves a Condemned Man
Review of the Penguin Classics paperback (2014) of a new translation* by David Coward from the French language original "La Tête d'un homme" (1931)

A Man's Head starts off with yet another unorthodox opening for a Simenon novel. Chief Inspector Maigret has engineered a prison escape for a condemned man on the eve of his execution by guillotine. Maigret believes the man to be innocent even though all evidence in the case pointed against him and Maigret himself had to arrest him. The purpose of the escape is to observe the suspect from a distance and to see if his movements lead back to the actual culprit.

See image at https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BNmMzZTRkNGQtMmYyZS00MTQ4LWFhYTAtMTFkNzg0...
Title card for the 1967 French TV adapation of "A Man's Head". Image sourced from IMDb.

The case becomes further complicated when an anonymous source reveals the escape plan to the press. Maigret's suspicions come to centre on the patrons of a particular bar where he meets a vagrant Czech student and the American relatives of the original murder victim. Then the escapee shows up outside the same bar for further intrigue. Eventually the mystery is miraculously solved yet again by the cantankerous Chief Inspector.

I've now read several of the early Maigret novellas in the past three weeks and they continue to impress with how different they are not only from each other, but also from other "Golden Age of Crime" novels of that interwar era. What is even more impressive is that the first dozen were all published in 1931 as if he wrote one every month. Perhaps it is not that surprising from an author who wrote over 500 books in his lifetime, but it still an eyeopener.

Continuing the confusion for completists, this is Maigret #9 in the Penguin Classics series of new translations (2013-2019) of the Inspector Maigret novels and short stories, but is listed as Maigret #5 in the previous standard Maigret Series listing.

Trivia and Links
* Some English translations have given the title as Maigret's War of Nerves.

A Man's Head, under its original French title La Tête d'un homme, was adapted for a French language film in 1933 directed by Julien Duvivier with Harry Baur as Inspector Maigret and for French television in 1967, as Episode 2 of the long running TV series Les enquêtes du commissaire Maigret (The Investigations of Commissioner Maigret) (1967-1990) with Jean Richard as Inspector Maigret.

There is an article about the Penguin Classics re-translations of the Inspector Maigret novels at Maigret, the Enduring Appeal of the Parisian Sleuth by Paddy Kehoe, RTE, August 17, 2019. ( )

This book has also been published under the titles "A Battle of Nerves" and "Maigret's War of Nerves"
I am loosely following this series in publication order as given by the Fantastic Fiction website so I label this book as #5 in the series - different people might place it someplace else in the series since Simenon published all his first 10 or 11 books in the series in 1931!

I loved the way this book starts, especially since I neglected to read the blurb before diving into the book so didn't realize the prison break was engineered by Maigret! The book was, as was common in the Golden Age of mysteries, fairly short so it was a fast read - I like this style but people who want to know the detailed personalities of their detective and/or criminal might not care for it as much. ( )

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