In his suit and bowler hat Superintendent Maigret feels out of place among the palm trees, the bright colors, the half-clad, bronzed vacationers on the Côte d'Azur. And the murder case that has called him here seems, somehow, not serious. Who could have wanted to stab to death William Brown, a middle-aged Australian who lived in squalor with an overblown, overperfumed mistress and her officious mother and whose only vice, apparently, was going out on a binge once a month?

Maigret would rather lounge in the sun and sip Pernods than question cab drivers, search the bars of Cannes for that rare slot machine, or sit in a sordid little dive with a woman called Fat Jaja.

A deft, psychologically fascinating story of men who kick over the traces — and of men who don't. And of how human love and tenderness can theme in the ugliest, most degenerate soil.