The Hardboiled Discussion Group
Maigret at the Coroner's
by Georges Simenon
“One of the greatest writers of the twentieth century . . . Simenon was unequaled at making us look inside, though the ability was masked by his brilliance at absorbing us obsessively in his stories.” —The Guardian
In Arizona on a study tour of America, Inspector Maigret observes a day in the life of a local coroner and becomes absorbed in a young girl’s murder
On his travels through the U.S., Maigret stops in Tucson, Arizona at the guidance of his FBI friend Harry Cole, who leaves him one day to observe a coroner’s inquest. The body being examined is that of Bessie Mitchell, a young girl who died under suspicious circumstances—she spent a night drinking and driving with five young Air Force men and was found the next morning on the tracks, run over by a train. Maigret quickly becomes engrossed in the hearing and the men’s conflicting stories, leaving questions of who bears the guilt for this death and who can be trusted at all.