Maigret, the French master detective who vies in international popularity with Sherlock Holmes and James Bond, has been around since 1930, investigating some seventy criminal cases.

Here, for the first time, Maigret is faced with a world so new and alien to him that he very nearly is fooled. While riding, on a fine spring morning, on the open platform of a bus, his wallet is stolen. The theft brings him in contact with François, who likes to be called Francis, a young man living on the fringes of the movie world. He may be a shiftles sponger or a budding genius; opinions differ. His motivations, his way of life, his contemporaries are a puzzle to Maigret, but one thing is beyond doubt: when François-Francis came home one night he found his wife murdered. By whom? And why? Maigret almost slips up on this one.