Summary: The Hanged Man of Saint-Pholien, in which Maigret’s swap of a suitcase as he follows a suspicious character results in the man’s suicide.

Maigret is on business in Brussels when he notices a shabbily dressed man mailing a pile of bank notes in an envelope labeled “printed matter.” The man is carrying a cheap cardboard suitcase. He sees the address, a Paris address. His curiosity piqued, he follows the man. Then at a buffet, he manages to switch the suitcase for one filled with paper. Subsequently, he follows the man to a cheap hotel, getting a room next to him. When the man opens the suitcase, he cries in dismay. The next thing Maigret hears is a shot. The man has committed suicide and Maigret, unintentionally, is the cause.

But what was in the suitcase? When Maigret opens it, he finds an old suit, too large for the deceased, with dark stains on it, with a tailor’s label from Paris. Then Maigret goes to the morgue and a businessman, Van Damme shows up as well and offers to travel with Maigret. And he keeps showing up as Maigret explores the life of the deceased, Jean Lecocq d’Arneville. In Paris, when he meets several others connected to the deceased and each other and later in Liege, Van Damme is there. One of the others is a highly successful businessman, Belloir. Another, Janin is a sculptor. And a third, Jef Lombard, is a painter in whose studio are numerous paintings of hanging men.

There’s something they are keeping from Maigret. At times, it seems they are a step ahead, destroying records. At one point there is an attempt on Maigret’s life. And we wonder where the hanging man of Saint-Pholien in the title comes in and whether Lombard’s paintings have anything to do with that. Above all else, Maigret needs to find a satisfying explanation for why Jean Lecocq d’Arneville would kill himself over a suitcase of old clothes that weren’t even his.

This is a short novel that makes for a quick read. What I want to know if you’ve read this or when you do, is whether you liked the ending. I didn’t see it coming, but I liked it when it came. ( )

I just couldn't get myself to give a Maigret only one star. But I can't say there was much about it that I liked. I love Inspector Maigret, who doesn't conform to so many of the other detectives (police and private) who inhabit the world of mystery writing. I like to read the stories partly for the plots, but more so for the characters that turn up and the settings. Some people read travel literature for the vicarious pleasure of travel; I read Maigret and I'm in Paris or Marseilles, or some podunk place in France, Belgium, Holland or farther afield with a colorful array of people.

This story did none of those things. The characters weren't well formed and only came together at the end, when it was too late to keep company with them. Maigret moved through a fog the whole time until the cockamamie ending. It was a long denouement, and sadly, not worth waiting for. ( )

A strange book this. One written in a way that shows how much has changed, both in society and in the expectations of crime fiction readers, since this book was published in 1931.

The start is strong but odd. Strong perhaps because it's odd.

While spending time in Belgium on police business, Maigret's curiosity is snagged by a man's aberrant and possibly criminal behaviour. On a whim, Maigret follows the man onto a train to Germany and takes an opportunity to steal the man's suitcase, replacing it with an identical one. He follows the man to Germany to see what will happen next. Even Maigret feels some remorse when, on finding that his suitcase has been swapped and its contents lost, the man commits suicide. Partly as a penance and partly to feed Maigret's insatiable curiosity, Maigret decides to find out why the man committed suicide when the stolen case contained only an old and stained suit of clothes.

That was quite a hook. I was taken aback by Maigret's arrogance, by his criminality and by the fact that neither he nor the authorities expected any penalties for his transgression. At this point, I was very much disliking Maigret but I had also been infected by his curiosity. I wanted to know why this man killed himself and that want carried me through the rest of the book.

The middle section of the book shows Maigret doing what he normally does: working alone, keeping his insights to himself and trying to solve the puzzle mostly by turning up where he's neither wanted nor expected and trying to wear people down until they tell him what he wants to know.

I enjoyed the descriptions of the people and the places more than the exposition of the plot. It gave me a window into a world now long gone: Germany and Belgium between the wars through the eyes of middle-aged middle-class men.

The plot was elaborate and improbable but the original incident that all the bad things flowed from was a colourful period piece set in the student days of the now middle-aged men and that brought its own interest.

The final section of the book didn't work for me. Maigret doesn't really work anything out. He just keeps staring at people until they explain it all. This took a long time and wasn't particularly credible. It didn't help that when I finally found out why the man whose suitcase Maigret stole committed suicide, I didn't believe in his response.

This was more of an atmospheric curiosity with some nice contemporary (now historical) details along the way rather than a mystery. ( )

Compelling and unusual mystery. This early book is the best of the admittedly few Maigrets I have read so far! ( )

Me lembrou, de certa forma, o dilema de Assassinato no Expresso do Oriente. Só que menos chocante. https://www.planocritico.com/critica-o-enforcado-de-saint-pholien/ ( )