No-one's ever going to turn Simenon into a feminist hero, but he was clearly someone who was endlessly fascinated by women and the details of their lives, always provided that they fitted into one of his two available categories: housewives and prostitutes. Mme Maigret, of course, is one of the former, and in the opening chapter of this book we get to see the world from her point of view for a change. While waiting to see the dentist, chance makes her a key witness in a (possible) murder case that her husband is investigating. Possibly motivated by guilt about having burnt the Commissaire's lunch, she does a bit of investigating on her own initiative, and comes up with some vital clues, although it's Maigret himself who gets the glory for putting all the pieces together and solving the case, naturellement.

Mme Maigret's intervention probably accounts for about 10% of the novel (the parts concerning shoes, hats and small children), and for the rest it is a very conventional sort of Maigret story. It is interesting and entertaining, though, and I couldn't help being reminded of that other famously unreconstructed lady detective created by a male author, Mma Ramotswe. ( )

I always liked this one because of the serendipity of Mme. Maigret's role

One of my favorites. Madame Maigret is charming. ( )