It's a short book (150 pages, and with not much writing per page) and although the strictly procedural elements of solving a crime are in order, there's not really much else that lifts it. It feels like it would work a lot better as a TV series with good sets - the one thing that stood out was the settings, shifting around between clubs, bistros, the fancy homes and offices of lawyers, the Parisian street... it was quite effective at setting a scene. Maigret himself is an enigma (as are the other policemen) with the titular anger barely shown even at the one time it does come up and other characters are only vaguely drawn, with no emotional connection and only mild interest. Although there are a lot of names such that I sometimes had to look back to get my bearings.

The ending isn't bad but it does strike me as kind of unrealistic A bigshot lawyer was telling his clients "you need to pay me this big sum to bribe the police to get you off" and somehow ran this scheme for *at least* 2 years and never had it backfire? The book justification is he only does it to people he knows will get off although a few get suspended or light sentences so presumably they'd be confused... And it doesn't really work for the murder victim either, who paid him a bribe to... avoid getting questioned again by police? Which was obviously risky as hell. Just... yeah ( )

Voilà donc un excellent Maigret ! Une intrigue pas trop compliquée, quelques chausses-trappes, un commissaire qui doute, un Maigret humain, véritable !

Et aussi un petit polar de rien du tout qui raconte Paris, un vieux Paris avec ses cabarets, sa faune interlope, ses petits brigands, et le milieu presque gentillet de Paris la nuit.

Avec une bonne grosse colère qui lui donne son titre... et sa saveur ( )

El comisario Maigret investia la muerte de una joven. Las indagaciones apuntan a una acaudalada familia que maneja Ernest Malik, un antiguo compañero suyo de clase. Cuando Malik le tacha de palurdo y le ofrece dinero para que deje de investigar, el comisario decide llegar hasta el final. Ya nada podrá echarle atrás.

Ending came about a bit suddenly on this one, not as clean as some others. Still great though. ( )

https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/3065336.html

I really enjoyed this police procedural, set in the Parisian underworld, where honour and dishonour are sometimes to be found in unexpected places - the murdered night-club owner’s family are initially suspect because of being foreign,but it turns out that they are innocent, and the villain is the very respectable top lawyer who took bribes from his clients, pretending that they were actually for Maigret - this is the cause of Maigret losing his temper when he finds out. And yet, Maigret allows the murderer to escape by suicide, rather as Agatha Christie sometimes did. A short book which punches well above its weight. ( )