The Strange Case of Peter the Lett
First edition | |
Author | Georges Simenon |
---|---|
Original title | French: Pietr-le-Letton |
Country | Belgium |
Language | French |
Series | Inspector Jules Maigret |
Genre | Detective fiction |
Publisher | A. Fayard |
Publication date | 1931 |
Media type | |
Preceded by | N/A |
Followed by | The Crime at Lock 14 |
The Strange Case of Peter the Lett (French: Pietr-le-Letton) is a 1931 detective novel by the Belgian writer Georges Simenon. It is the first novel to feature Inspector Jules Maigret who would later appear in more than a hundred stories by Simenon and who has become a legendary figure in the annals of detective fiction.
Plot summary
Maigret is notified through Interpol that Peter the Lett, an international fraudster and leader of the notorious Baltic Gang, is travelling to Paris. Furnished only with a description he and a squad from the Police Judiciaire plan to intercept him at the Gare du Nord. However, after seeing a man who matches the description Maigret is called to a carriage of the train to find a body, also matching the description he has.
Tracking the first man to a hotel he is identified as Oswald Oppenheim, a businessman in town to meet an American, Mortimer Levington, and his wife.
Meanwhile, a forensic examination of the body leads Maigret to the seaside town of Fécamp, and to the family of a Norwegian sea captain, Olaf Swaan, another man who matches Peter's description. While staking out the house, he follows another, identical, man, an itinerant Russian, later named Fyodor Yurevich. Maigret follows him back to Paris, to a flop-house in the Marais district where he is found to live with a prostitute, Anna Gorskin.
So who is Peter? A vagrant, a seaman, a businessman, a corpse? Is he Russian, Norwegian, American, or Latvian? Maigret's persistence is needed to unravel the mystery and track down the real Peter.[1][2]
Maigret's method
In this story, we are introduced to aspects of M's detective method. Simenon tells us that, like any other policeman, Maigret “worked with the amazing tools that men like Bertillon, Reiss and Locard have given the police; anthropometry, the principle of the trace and so on”. But that beyond that he sought “the crack in the wall” where the tiniest flaw in a man's camouflage is allowed to slip, giving Maigret a firm grasp on his real nature (p 38). Later Simenon describes the moment when Peter's character “cracked wide open”; having observed that Peter was not merely playing a role, but “living quite different lives in alternation”, Maigret caught, in a bar-room mirror “a quiver in Pietr's lips, and an almost imperceptible contraction of his nostrils”. At that moment Maigret saw “now the guest of the Majestic, now Anna Gorskin's tormented lover” (p94-96).[1]
Maigret's description
Simenon recalled when asked about the conception of his character, that he was sitting on his boat and imagined "a large, powerfully built gentleman I thought would make a passable inspector. As the day wore on I added other features; a pipe, a bowler hat, a thick overcoat with a velvet collar, and, as it was cold and damp, I put a cast-iron stove in his office".[1]
Other titles
The book has been translated three times into English: In 1933, by Anthony Abbott as The Strange Case of Peter the Lett; in 1963 by Daphne Woodward as Maigret and the Enigmatic Lett; and in 2013 by David Bellos as Pietr the Latvian.[3]
Adaptations
The story has been adapted for television three times: In English in 1963 (with Rupert Davies in the main role); in Dutch in 1967 (Jan Teulings); and in French in 1972 (Jean Richard).
See also
- Le Monde's 100 Books of the Century
Notes
References
- Georges Simenon Pietr the Latvian 1931; translated D Bellos 2013 Penguin Classics, London ISBN 9780141392738
External links
- Maigret at trussel.com
- v
- t
- e
novels
- The Strange Case of Peter the Lett (1931)
- The Crime at Lock 14 (1931)
- The Death of Monsieur Gallet (1931)
- The Crime of Inspector Maigret (1931)
- A Battle of Nerves (1931)
- Maigret and the Yellow Dog (1931)
- Maigret at the Crossroads (1931)
- The Sailors' Rendezvous (1931)
- Maigret at the Gai-Moulin (1931)
- Guinguette by the Seine (1931)
- The Shadow in the Courtyard (1932)
- Maigret Goes Home (1932)
- The Flemish Shop (1932)
- Death of a Harbour Master (1932)
- The Madman of Bergerac (1932)
- Maigret in Exile (1940)
- Maigret and the Hotel Majestic (1942)
- Maigret and the Spinster (1942)
- To Any Lengths (1944)
- Maigret and the Toy Village (1944)
- Maigret in Retirement (1947)
- Maigret in New York (1947)
- A Summer Holiday (1948)
- Maigret's Dead Man (1948)
- Maigret's First Case (1948)
- My Friend Maigret (1949)
- Maigret and the Coroner (1949)
- Maigret and the Old Lady (1950)
- Madame Maigret's Own Case (1950)
- Maigret's Memoirs (1950)
- Inspector Maigret and the Strangled Stripper (1950)
- Maigret and the Burglar's Wife (1951)
- Maigret, Lognon and the Gangsters (1951)
- Maigret's Revolver (1952)
- Maigret and the Man on the Boulevard (1953)
- Maigret's Mistake (1953)
- Maigret Goes to School (1954)
- Maigret and the Headless Corpse (1955)
- Maigret Sets a Trap (1955)
- Maigret's Failure (1956)
- Maigret Has Scruples (1958)
- Maigret and the Lazy Burglar (1961)
- Maigret and the Saturday Caller (1962)
- Maigret and the Dosser (1963)
- Maigret on the Defensive (1964)
- The Patience of Maigret (1965)
- Maigret Hesitates (1968)
- Maigret and the Killer (1969)
- Maigret and the Mad Woman (1970)
- Maigret and the Loner (1971)
- Maigret and Monsieur Charles (1972)
- Les Fiançailles de M. Hire (1933)
- The Night Club (1933)
- Tropic Moon (1933)
- Chit of a Girl (1938)
- The Man Who Watched the Trains Go By (1938)
- Le Bourgmestre de Furnes (1939)
- The Strangers in the House (1940)
- Strange Inheritance (1941)
- La Veuve Couderc (1942)
- Young Cardinaud (1942)
- Act of Passion (1946)
- The Mahé Circle (1946)
- The Couple from Poitiers (1946)
- Pedigree (1948)
- The Bottom of the Bottle (1949)
- Belle (1952)
- Red Lights (1953)
- The Watchmaker of Everton (1954)
- The Little Man from Archangel (1956)
- The Cat (1967)
- The Man on the Bench in the Barn (1968)
- The Prison (1968)
- The Disappearance of Odile (1971)
- The Glass Cage (1971)
- The Man Who Wasn't Maigret (1992 biography)