Maigret and the Tavern by the Seine // The Two-Penny Bar — Georges Simenon

During a final visit to the cell of condemned man Jean Lenoir, Inspector Maigret picks up a negligently dropped remark about an unsolved--in fact, unreported--murder committed in Paris six years before. It seems Lenoir and his partner, Victor, witnessed the dumping of a lifeless body in the Canal Saint-Martin and used the information to blackmail the murderer. But eventually their victim squirmed away and wasn't seen again until one evening at the Guinguette a Deux Sous, a tavern by the Seine.

With such meager clues, even Maigret is nearly at a loss over where to begin an investigation, but patience, as always, comes to the rescue. The Inspector locates the tavern by the Seine, where he finds an odd crowd who gathers there regularly. Is Lenoir's blackmail victim among this group of seemingly respectable friends? It seems unlikely, until another murder is committed and Maigret recognizes that violence lurks in this tavern. Might this some violence have erupted once before -- perhaps six years earlier? Throughout the unbearably hot summer months, Maigret finds little relief until he discovers the answer within a tangle of contradictions and startling coincidences.