Maigret and the Man on the Bench (Inspector Maigret)

The vicious stabbing of a dull and respectable man makes for a knotty investigation when his audacious secret life comes to light.

A middle-aged man is knifed in an alleyway, where he dies instantly. In this working-class area of Saint-Martin, random stabbings don’t typically interest Maigret. But Louis Thouret, in his raincoat and dark suit, is conspicuously ordinary, not a drunk or a gang member. Asking around, Maigret gets the impression of a kind and gentle soul, and he grows attached to the dead man—who, it emerges, led an audacious double life quite at odds with his respectable image. As the depth of Louis’s duplicity comes to light, Maigret must also split himself in two, almost becoming Louis to learn why he was murdered so viciously. In Maigret and the Man on the Bench, Georges Simenon casts his inimitable narrative spell while posing the question: Just how far should a person go to salvage their one short and precious life?