Maigret on the Riviera

In Simenon's latest mystery to be published here, a poignant tale deftly translated by Sainsbury, his famed detective Maigret must resist the beguiling vistas of the resort paradise of Antibes to concentrate on the murder of William Brown, a retired Australian sheep rancher. For 10 years after deserting his wife and children, Brown had lived with his mistress Gina Martini and her meddlesome mother. Maigret discovers that Brown got money regularly from his son Harry, manager of the family business. When the two women divulge that their late ""protector'' periodically disappeared and squandered the checks on drink, Maigret traces Brown to a sleazy bar where he finds two more women in the dead man's lifebuxom, overdressed, Fat Jaja and a young prostitute named Sylvie. Maigret resorts to his fine-tuned intuitions to solve this unerringly told mystery. (April)