In a great courtroom drama, Maigret has to explain why he does not belive that Gaston Meurant was capable of slitting his aunt's throat for money and smothering a small child. But in saving him from the gallows, Maigret must expose some dark secretsabout Meurant's life. A painful story of an oppressive domestic tragedy and the compassionate insight of a remarkable detective. 'A truly wonderful writer ... marvellously readable - lucid, simple, absolutely in tune with that world he creates ofrun-down hotels, cold, dark barges, quayside canal-taverns, lurking prostitutes, pot-bellied burghers, taciturn youths, slippery barmen' - Muriel Spark, Sunday Times