I'm currently reading Pietr the Latvian, the first of Georges Simenon's 75 novels featuring Commissaire (Jules) Maigret which he penned in 1930 when he were but a lad of 27. Like all the books I've tackled in the series this one is a fine yarn as well as an historical treasure but I have to say I was slightly taken aback by some of the observations Maigret makes about his more, well, unsavoury characters - in particular a down-at-heel immigrant whom he follows while on the case. To wit:
"Overall the man fitted a type that Maigret knew well: the migrant low-lifer of Eastern European origin who slept in squalid lodging houses and sometimes in railway stations. A type not often seen outside Paris, but accustomed to travelling in third-class carriages when not riding the footboards or hopping freight trains. He got proof of his insight a few minutes later. Fécamp doesn't have any genuine low dives, but behind the harbour there are two or three squalid bars favoured by dockhands and seamen. Ten metres before these places there's a regular café kept clean and bright. The man in the trenchcoat walked right past it and straight into the least prepossessing of the bars where he put his elbow on the counter in a way that Maigret saw right through. It was the straightforwardly vulgar body-language of a guttersnipe. Even if he'd tried, Maigret couldn't have imitated it."
Charming!
So now, put that in yer pipe and smoke it!
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