Maigret et la Grande Perche (1951)

Maigret and the Burglar's Wife (French: Maigret et la Grande Perche) is a 1951 detective novel by the Belgian writer Georges Simenon featuring his character Jules Maigret. Maigret is spurred into action by a visit from a burglar's wife, former prostitute, whom he had arrested many years before. She informs him that a night previously her husband had been in the act of burgling a house when he discovered a woman’s dead body. Horrified, he had fled the scene, and then left the country - writing to his wife by letter. Maigret is inclined to investigate a wealthy dentist, who lives with his domineering mother, and has a Dutch wife who has apparently "gone away to visit her home country” - although Maigret knows he can prove nothing unless he can find the body.

It was translated into English and released in the United Kingdom in 1956.

Adaptations

It has been adapted several times for television. In 1992 it was made into an episode of an ITV Maigret series.