French title: Le petit docteur
Year: 1943
Year Englished: 1981, tr. Jean Stewart
The Little Doctor
– Georges Simenon
Jean Dollent, a.k.a. The Little Doctor, has little in
common with Simenon’s other master detective, Maigret. They both like to knock
back any old alcohol at all, from beer to brandy and both trust their intuition
to get to the heart of the matter. But Jean is short in stature and slim
compared to Maigret’s height and bulk; silly and youthful Jean contrasts with
Maigret’s gravity and middle-age; and single Jean always loses his balance
around pretty young women while Maigret is the exemplar of a faithful husband.
These thirteen short stories, about 25 pages long, were
probably published in magazines in the late Thirties. Considering that
everybody with any sense knew that war was coming with Nazi Germany, it is no
wonder people turned to escapist mystery and crime stories for a little relief.
The stories often take place in the summer time and Simenon is as usual just
right with weather and scenery. The stories are set all over France but often
in the country in Marsilly, not far from La Rochelle and the Charente
countryside. The scenes are places quaint even in the late 1930s – a France
where not everybody is “on the telephone,” a France that doesn’t exist anymore.
Simenon is not Agatha Christie, so the puzzles are not
intricate and their resolutions are very simplistic - even downright improbable. The riddles are not
the point, with the focus more on the portraits of the characters, developed in
a few words succinctly but effectively. And what characters! Right out of
Balzac – the corrupt but prudish bourgeois, the avaricious peasant, the sad
spinster, etc. Simenon is lighter and more facetious than usual. He gives a
wink to fans by having The Little Doctor interact with Maigret’s subordinates
Lucas and Torrence when cases take him Paris.
An obscure thing to read, sure, but may be of interest to
fans of Simenon and light old timey crime stories.
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