"Maigret is taking a trip to Villefranche-en-Dordogne, to visit his old friend Leduc. At the same time he can go to Bordeaux, and take care of some business. Mrs. Maigret is in Alsace, where her sister is having her third baby. Maigret takes the bottom bed in a 2nd class sleeping car, but is kept awake but the man above. In the morning the man gets up to go, and Maigret notices he's about to jump off the train. Without thinking, Maigret follows, also jumping off the train. When he yells to the man, he shoots Maigret in the shoulder. Maigret makes his way to a farm, and wakes up in a hospital in Bergerac, where it's been assumed he's the Madman of Bergerac, who'd already strangled two women to death, and then stabbed them through the heart with a needle. Leduc comes to his rescue, but he'll have to spend two weeks recuperating. He gets moved to a hotel, the Hôtel d'Angleterre, and Mrs. Maigret comes to care for him. She finds a 2nd class train ticket, Paris-Bergerac under the mat of the door, and Maigret pursues the investigation from his bed, believing that one of his visitors is the killer.
After various interviews, a dead man is found in the forest, shot through the head, the man from the train. He'd been dead a week, though the same day the doctor, Jacques Rivaud's sister-in-law, Françoise Beausoleil, had claimed to have been attacked. The man's identity is Samuel Meyer, presumed killed in a hospital fire in Algiers years earlier. He'd been awaiting a death sentence for murdering two men, his agents in a document forging business under the cover of a postage-stamp dealer's. Maigret learns from Germaine Rivaud, the doctor's wife, that they'd met in Algiers. Maigret has Mrs Maigret check the French universities, and learns that no Jacques Rivaud had ever qualified. He places an ad in the papers, bringing Françoise Beausoleil's mother, Joséphine Beausoleil to Bergerac.
While he is interviewing her, Jacques Rivaud and his sister-in-law try to escape, but Leduc stops them. They run to a hotel room, locked themselves in, and committed suicide. Samuel Meyer had been Rivaud's father. He'd saved him by setting fire to the hospital, and identifying a dead body as his. He'd married one of the patients in the ward, Germaine, and with her mother and sister, returned to Europe with his father, whom he'd sent to America. Changing his name, he'd moved to Bergerac, and set up his mother-in-law in Bordeaux. His father had returned to France, after killing two women the same way in America, and started his mad killing again when he visited Bergerac. Somehow the Public Prosecutor, Duhourceau, had caught on, so Rivaud had arranged for him to think his sister-in-law was having his child, thus keeping him quiet.
"
Dana Samson, Resident Scholar
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Review Analysis of The Madman of Bergerac
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Ratings are on a 1-10 scale (Low to High)
Plot
Composition of Book descript. of violence and chases - 20% Planning/preparing, gather info, debate puzzles/motives - 60% Feelings, relationships, character bio/development - 10% How society works & physical descript. (people, objects, places) - 10%
Tone of story
- Dry-cynical
How difficult to spot villain?
- Difficult, but some clues given
Time/era of story:
- 1960's-1970's
What % of story relates directly
to the mystery, not the subplot?
- nearly 100%
Kind of investigator
- police procedural, Foreign
Kid or adult book?
- Adult or Young Adult Book
Crime Thriller
Yes
Murder Mystery (killer unknown)
Yes
Main Character
Gender
- Male
Profession/status:
- police/lawman
Age:
- 40's-50's
How much violence does he/she use?
- a little
Ethnicity/Race
- French
How sensitive is this character?
- middling sensitive to others' feelings
Sense of humor
- Cynical sense of humor
Intelligence
- Genius (really!)
Physique
- healthy but a geeky weakling
Main Adversary
Identity:
- Male
Age:
- 60's-90's
Profession/status:
- unemployed
Eccentric:
Yes
- obsessed
- wild
- mentally ill
- emotionally unstable
How much of work is main antagonist actually present in:
- a little/some
Motive of antagonist
- insanity
How sensitive is this character?
- mean, arrogant
Intelligence
- Dumb
Physique
- average physique
Setting
Europe
Yes
European country:
- France
Style
Part of a series?
Yes
Person
- mostly 3rd
Accounts of torture and death?
- very gorey descriptions deaths/dead bodies
How many deaths?
- 5-7
Unusual forms of death
- perforation--swords/knives
Unusual form of death?
Yes
Amount of dialog
- significantly more descript than dialog
