Wasting away in Hickville

Just finished my first Simenon and it was a letdown. Having read the rave John Banville offered the LA Weekly, I should have known better. He describes Simenon's Maigret novels as formulaic, and that's an understatement. Maigret at the Coroner's is a thin piece of junk.

Maigret is in Arizona watching a coroner's inquest. That is the bulk of the novel. There are some funny 1950's pre-PC set pieces (putting blacks and Chinese in their undeserved places), and having the Frenchmen Maigret observe them is rewarding. He doesn't pretend to know how to act in the southwest, and simply can't relate to the 'howdy partner' nonsense of it all.

That said, the book I read is junk. It's a court transcription interlaced with a few Maigret encounters. I don't care about Maigret or his insights. The books Banville wrote about seem of a different color, so I'll take a shot and hopefully suppress any disappointment until I find a winner.

Winning quotes:

"Do Chinese, like certain blacks, have any particular predilection for white women?"

"I know a little about the Chinese," he said now.
"What do you think of them?"
"Nothing!" he said ironically.

"That's because we're richer. This is the only place in the world wher there are poor people who have their own car. The blacks who pick cotton almost all have an old jalopy. We've cut the losses to a minimum. We're a great people, Julius."

Chapter 8 is entitled: The Negro Intervenes