The detections of Monsieur Froget, the "Examining Magistrate," are set among the people of a city the young Simenon knew well. As the translator, Peter Schulman, says in the introduction, "it is a marginal Paris, populated by society's losers who, for one reason or another, are brought down by a petty vice, or a greedy aspiration, that invariably leads to a bitter sense of failure in their lives … and, of course, a crime they hubristically think they can get away with. It is the lonely city within all levels of the Parisian mosaic; a Paris made up of eccentric individuals who all, in some manner or another, feel as though they have been hung out to dry on the fringes of society." It is a Paris of prostitutes, adventurers, circus artistes, and the flotsam thrown up by the First World War. It is a world captured by a great writer.

Contents:

• Ziliouk
• Monsieur Rodrigues
• Madame Smitt
• The "Flemings"
• Nouchi
• Arnold Schuttringer
• Waldemar Strvzeski
• Philippe
• Nicolas
• The Timmermans
• The Pacha
• Otto Müller
• Bus