'Compelling, remorseless, brilliant' John Gray

Maigret plunges into the murky Parisian underworld in book twenty-nine of the new Penguin Maigret series.

'That shoeless foot looked incongruous lying on the pavement next to another foot encased in a shoe made of black kid leather. It was naked, private . . . It was Maigret who retrieved the other shoe which lay by the kerb six or seven metres away'

A series of strange phone calls leads Inspector Maigret through the Paris streets towards a man out of his depth amid a network of merciless criminals.

This novel has been published in a previous translation as Maigret's Special Murder.

'His artistry is supreme' John Banville

'A supreme writer . . . unforgettable vividness' Independent