Philippe Jaenada is publishing L'Inconnue du quai de Javel this fall, a new literary investigation devoted to a 76-year-old murder, for which the writer immersed himself in all of Maigret's novels in order to draw inspiration from the methods of Georges Simenon's famous commissioner.
A model from Montparnasse was found lifeless on the quays
On September 6, 1949, a young woman was found dead on the Quai de Javel in Paris, without a bag or shoes, clearly hastily dressed before being abandoned by her murderer. She was identified the very next day: Louise Cansot, the most sought-after model for painters in Montparnasse at the time. Four suspects quickly emerged from the investigation, but Chief Inspector Ferrière, lacking Maigret's talent, had to close the case after six months without making a single arrest.
76 years later, Philippe Jaenada takes up the rediscovered file and embarks, as usual, on a meticulous work of archives, surveying the places of the crime as well as those of Louise Cansot's Breton childhood, in Tréguier.
A method modeled on that of the fictional police commissioner
For this new book, the author read all seventy-five Maigret investigations, humbly and faithfully drawing inspiration from the observational methods of the commissioner created by Georges Simenon to conduct his own investigation. He also reports having used artificial intelligence to help him unravel certain threads of his inquiry.
After La Serpe in 2017 and La Désinvolture est une bien belle chose in 2024, this new story extends an entire body of work devoted to the great French criminal enigmas, where the author is as concerned with giving justice to the innocent as with giving a face back to the forgotten victims of history.
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