Saturday, April 5, 2014

Paperback 759: Inspector Maigret and the Strangled Stripper / Georges Simenon (Signet 1188)

Paperback 759: Signet 1188 (1st ptg, 1955)

Title: Inspector Maigret and the Strangled Stripper
Author: Georges Simenon
Cover artist: Robert Maguire

Yours for: $9

Sig1188

Best things about this cover:
  • That guy has the best "[sigh] Dames…" face ever. Ever.
  • His hands are amazing. This pose is so weird, the framing of the stripper so unusual. I kind of want to shout "Get Out Of The Way, Dude!" but then I remember a. she's dead, so that's kind of wrong, and b. artistically, this cover is original and cool.
  • It's hard to believe she's dead with her right arm in that position and her right knee up like that. I say she's alive, and therefore, "Get Out Of The Way, Dude!"

Sig1188bc

Best things about this back cover:
  • "Yes, I smoke a pipe. Why? Because I'm manly and Belgian—what the fuck do you care, buddy?"
  • Mmm, "dark bistros" and "smoke-filled dives" … tell me more.
  • Simenon is one of those writers I keep meaning to read and never do. I read one novel, I think: "Maigret à New York." In French. I enjoyed it. The end.

Page 123~

They had only about five hundred yards to go in the nearly deserted boulevard. The nightclubs, their signs glowing in the rain, couldn't be making a fortune in this kind of weather, and the bedecked doormen stayed under cover, ready to unfurl their big red umbrellas.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

5 comments:

DemetriosX said...

Actually, Simenon was manly and Belgian. And pretty damn manly, too. He was traveling through the Panama Canal and came across a bootleg edition of his stuff printed in Panama. So while his boat was docked at whichever end it was, he paid the publisher a little visit and beat the crap out of the guy until he forked over some royalties. Now that I think about it, that's actually aggravated assault and robbery, isn't it?

Rex Parker said...

Of course he's Belgian. It says so right on the book. My bad.

RP

David P. Simmons said...

If you dig manly, check out Simenon’s claims about the number of women he bedded (10,000) even it was half what Wilt Chamberlain claimed (20,000). Many of his books involve sex, but graphic description doesn’t appear.

Karl said...

The ONLY situation where I can remotely imagine any human being striking a pose like Mr. SquareJaw's is a writer sitting at his typewriter, trying to think what to write.

So I'm going to assume that this cover, rather than showing us a scene from the book, is showing us the writing of the book. Here's Georges, moments after typing out the title. "Okay, that part's done'" he thinks. "Now what the eff do I do?" (Leans back in his chair, imagining a strangled (or about-to-be-strangled) stripper...)

datrappert said...

Mr. SquareJaw looks like Chuck Connors from the Rifleman.